March 5, 2026 • 54 mins
It's a pickle for the ages: What happens when you die? The Spiritualism movement may seem obscure today -- but back in the mid-19th century, this religious and social phenomenon absolutely rocked the modern world. In the first part of this special two-part episode, Ben, Noel and Max welcome back Jonathan Strickland (aka the Quizster) to explore the rise of this movement... and Jonathan promises to behave.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. Wait, I hear in other worldly
knock on that door? Who is that? It's our guest
super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
The ghostly apparition of Dylan Rapp tap tappin the very same,
very same, But that is a quote.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
You are, Noel Brown. I am Ben Bollen. We have been, uh,
we've been fascinated for a long time about the idea
of you know, wija boards and mediums and psychics, and
the fact that pretty much from the moment humans started
human being, everybody has been understandably concerned about what happens
(01:15):
after they die.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Oh a million percent. I mean it's it's the foundation
of so many belief systems and debates as to where
you go and how you get there, and who's right
and who's wrong. I mean, Ben, it's it often. It
gets people pretty heated.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
It does. People are at the risk of this beat
a hot take. People are a little bit sensitive about
whether or not an echo of you persist. When your
body fails, does your consciousness go somewhere does it simply disappear.
And like you said, Nol, there are tons of religions
and belief systems that claim to have the answer, but
(01:55):
humanity is yet to land on a shared universal explanation
that everybody and their mom takes as fact. It's not
to say people haven't tried, but in the spirit of
this for our series this week, this will be a
two parter, we decided to call up our own ghost
(02:16):
from years gone. The rumors are true. After we shout
this guy out in the credits all the time, we're
welcoming back, Jonathan Strickland, aka the Quister. But you're reformed now.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Right, Yeah, rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated. I'm
merely an elder statesman in podcasting.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Exaggerated by me. I'm always throwing around death it all
the time.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
If it's wishful thinking in the case of Noel. But
you know, we love each other obviously, obviously, so I'm
very flattered to have been asked back, especially on this topic.
Quick personal story, when I was a student in elementary
school way back when. We'll probably cover some of the
(03:03):
time period when we get there, because that's how old
I am. But when I was a student in elementary school, I,
to the surprise of no one here, would frequent the
school library and the section I consistently went to was
the quote unquote non fiction books about the paranormal and
(03:24):
the supernatural. So I would check out the same books
over and over, even like just rereading ones I had
read all the way through what.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Are we talking here? John? And are we talking?
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Like manuals on how to summon a specter?
Speaker 3 (03:39):
There were no Tobin spirit guides in our elementary school library. No,
I'm thinking about things like deep Fried Rat I think
was one of the names of one. It was all
about urban legends and things of that nature.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Those were popular, like at the scholastic book fairs, right
remember this, Yeah, like, yeah, all kinds of urban legend
books and conspiracy type books. Not to mention those kind
of There are books for kids that, when you look
back on them, were pretty grizzly.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
And scary stories to tell the dark. It's a banger.
It's some of the best folklore out there.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
My dad wrote some of those. So, but this was
when I was a kid, it was before that kind
of trend had started taking off. But I would read
all the books on things like you know, you know, lockness,
monster or ghost stories or things about spiritualism and mediums
and such. And one of my favorite stories I wanted
(04:32):
to relate to you before we really jump into it.
Have you guys heard of a fellow named James Tidwell?
Not okay, so mid nineteenth century. This guy he was
like he had he had the deck stacked against him.
He was really short, like somewhere around four foot two.
(04:52):
But he became a prominent spiritualist in Maryland, and the
Baltimore Sun even had the great story that I'll talk
about in the second. But anyway, he became known as
this incredibly charismatic person who, despite his stature, was able
to get an enormous following. But he also became known
(05:13):
for bilking people out of huge amounts of money in
an effort to try and get them connected to their
their deceased loved ones.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Now that doesn't sound like something one of these folks
would do.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
I know, right, So law enforcement became very interested in him,
and at that point he he made tracks which prompted
the Baltimore Sun to run the wonderful headline small Medium
at Large that.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
He made this whole story up Dombastard.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
We stared at this is the ridiculous history of this movement.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I was on board with this, Hootale.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Thanks, this is the ridiculous history of the spiritualist movement.
We have returned. No one really can prove what happens
after you die, to everybody else's satisfaction. Hence we have
(06:12):
things like spiritualism. How would we describe.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
That, well, Spiritualism is a movement that started in the
nineteenth century in America and Europe, you know, based on
the notion that one could communicate with the dearly departed,
and that they in some shape or form had the
(06:39):
ability to interact with the living. And these you know,
kind of self proclaimed spiritualists for better or words, whether
they actually believed in these abilities or whether they were
just outright you know, hucksters, sought to make contact with
the dead, usually through a form of seance. The term
(07:03):
medium is often thrown around as in being sort of
like a go between, uh, you know, to sort of
channel the the the dad, you know, and to crossover
from this mortal coil into you know, the the world beyond.
And you know, these spiritualists, some of them, I think,
actually genuinely did believe that they were able to contact spirits.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
We could even call them some of the original rappers
because they were wrapping knocking in terms of their communication,
kind of like clever hauns. Yeah, but that was but
but that was a scam. So you know, yeah, I'm
playing a seed with.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Some good to have some horse sense before you.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Little horse, little horse play horsing around guys. My, I
think I've maybe mentioned on the show before. My mother
was an opera singer and an opera that she often
did that I remember very fondly. It's got some pieces
in It's more of like a operetta, I guess, but
it's I don't know, it doesn't feel like a traditional opera.
It's called The Medium by gian Carlo Manati. Folks may
(08:13):
know this composer from a very popular piece he did
called A Mall and the Night Visitors, which is a
tale of the you know, the wise men and all
of this stuff. It's often, you know, performed at churches.
But The Medium is about this woman who is a medium,
who has a mute assistant named Toby, who kind of
(08:34):
does all of the light behind the scenes rap tap
tapping and stuff and it doesn't get a lot of love,
and I really think some of the music in it
is utterly gorgeous. So do check out the medium if
anyone's interested in, you know, seeing a musical rendition of
the kind of stuff we're talking about today.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Yeah, you'll see it in a lot of film and fiction.
This trope is a hard baked, deeply ingrained phenomenon in
horror and fantasy and entertainment because from the nineteenth to
the twentieth century this was a genuine craze. This was
(09:11):
all over the zeitgeist. People from all imaginable demographics and
walks of life genuinely seemed to believe that a combination
of science and religion could create a new understanding of
what happens after you die, could prove and after life existed,
(09:31):
and that further, certain very special people were able to
bridge the gap between the living and the debt.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Yeah, you might actually wonder why this even happened, Like,
why did this trend.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Because you could pay them?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Yes, yes, that's the very important part, is the payment part,
which stretches into today. But yeah, we'll talk later about
some of the elements. But I think it was a
convergence of factors that came together that kind of sowed
the seeds that would grow into spiritualism. Because it's one
thing to say this was a craze, but it's another
(10:07):
thing to say, but why that craze at that time?
And I don't think there's a single answer for that,
but I do think there's a lot of really interesting
different answers that all contribute to it.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Well, it's always made me wonder too. I mean, being
the United States was still quite a religious place, you know,
as so many of these religious leaders, how this stuff
wasn't looked upon as heresy or in some way offensive
to God, because I mean, this idea that of the
(10:40):
ghosts exists kind of implies that, I mean, they didn't
go to heaven.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Well, they were also this interesting because here we get
into something that would be called heresy in the past.
And as we'll see, not all of the skeptics were
necessarily atheist. A lot of the most famous ones were,
but there were some people who were skeptics because this
stuff in the spiritualist movement did not jibe with their
(11:08):
existing understanding of religion. So like, okay, you're always gonna
hear it this way, folks, Our story begins in upstate
New York in the eighteen forties. So many things do.
But we'll get to that. But I think we can argue,
fellow ridiculous historians, the story actually begins way way earlier,
(11:28):
when an absolute legend named Emmanuel Swedenborg or Seedenborg starts
doing some really weird stuff. Oh my god, he's such
a weird dude. He's an episode. We should do an
episode on Johnatha.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Can you make with the star trek puns for Swedenborg?
I could, but I was immediately thinking of Gutenberg. Also
true because Gutenberg the musical. The villain consistently mispronounces Gutenberg's
name is Gutenborg. Ah, let's not forget about Steve Gutenborg
from the Police Academy movies that Ben's loves so dearly it's.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Uh, and also mispronounced someone's name. It's one of those
tiny nags right with his little moves. Uh. We likes
doing that, sure does. And we also have to know
for the record, our buddy Manny, I'll call him Manny.
He is cartoonishly Swiss. His name For all of us
(12:24):
etymology nerds, his name literally translates to something like sweden Castle,
Can we call him sweets? Yeah, of course, yeah he was.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
He was so sweet Swiss that he always had a knife,
a toothpick, a.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Saw tweezer song in his heart.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
He was like, uh, he would uh, he would return
cheese if it didn't have holes in it. That's how
Swiss this guy is.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
And if he got a piece of cheese with with
no holes in it, he damn well use that Swiss
army knife to make some He sure did.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
And who knows back then, maybe they just called it
the army knife. That's true, sort of like the Irish
car bomb.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Nobody in Ireland wants to hear about the God as
a beverage. Come on, as a as a novelty cocktail.
Come on, that's like having it's like over here having
a cocktail called the nine to eleven.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Let's uh, let's let's leave the truck, let's leave the
troubles behind us. Do talk about and talk about this guy,
because so we're talking about someone who is formative in
the foundation of spiritualism, but this is also someone who
was a legit smarty pants type of person, right, We're
(13:34):
not Yeah, we're not talking about someone who's who just
like spontaneously gets this this uh, this hair, this wild
hair about about us convening with the dead. This is
someone who was a learned man.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yeah, gives it some sand, you know, I mean we
I think we're all, especially on stuff they don't want
you to know. Often fascinated between the crossover between science
and the paranormal. We have an interview with an incredible
physicist named Russell targ who was responsible for training CIA
agents how to become psychic. The man who is incredibly learned,
(14:14):
has a background in all of the foundations of science,
and yet truly does believe that these things are possible,
which really makes you think twice about, you know, calling
someone like that a fraud.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Right, Yeah, and our buddy Manny at this time to
that beautiful point about science and spirituality converging again. He's
born in sixteen eighty eight, he lives until about seventeen
seventy two. To your point, Jonathan, he's a scientist, he's
an engineer. But wait, there's more. As Billy Bays was
(14:45):
wont to say, he's an astronomer, a philosopher, an inventor,
a Christian theologian. And then in seventeen forty one, he
is fifty three years old, and he starts to have
things that rock his lived experience. He has very vivid
dreams and he has waking visions. And these are not
(15:08):
one offs. They accumulate and escalate over time, all leading
to Easter weekend. It's April sixth, seventeen forty four, and
Jesus Christ from earlier reaches out to Manny.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Directly from earlier? Is they see himself from before?
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Right?
Speaker 4 (15:30):
I mean?
Speaker 3 (15:31):
And he had a lot of stuff to do that weekend.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
He's a busy guy.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
What would he do is the question that you often
see on people's little wristband. That's right, yeah, tell you
what he would do. He would reach out to Swedenborn.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
And say, hey, you guys humans, great hustle on the
whole Christianity thing, humbly named. I need you to write
the truth about the world and life and death and
heaven and hell. I need you to write something called
the Heavenly Doctrine. You're the only guy who can do this.
(16:06):
Thanks great call.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
This is some gold Tablets Joseph Smith type origin story.
You know, Emlily made me think of that one hundred percent.
But the question then becomes like, is this a person
who is mentally unwell, who is having an episode, or
is this someone who is divinely contacted uh and compelled
to write, you know, a work that could be seen
(16:28):
as a sacred.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Text, or or possibly someone who sees opportunity. Because I
don't think it's I don't think it's either or I
think there's a third option.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
That's very true.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
There is a secret third thing that you just illuminated
so well, so to accomplish this task that he was
tasked with. And again we're just we're speaking speculatively here.
God gave Swedenborg. Uh, well is it was it Jesus
or was it God? I guess they're one and the same,
depending on you know.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Yeah, there's the Holy Ghost of hanging around somewhere too.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
But yeah, they franchised.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
So he gifts Swedenborg with some some abilities.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Yeah, he says, Okay, Manny, you can now freely visit
heaven and Hell, and you can talk with the angels,
you can talk with the demons, you could talk with
other spirits. And then this continues for years. By the way,
Manny feels that he is in communication with the divine
(17:28):
and later God or Jesus Christ if you like, tells manny. Oh,
by the way, the last judgment was also a real thing.
It already happened in seventeen fifty seven. You're in the aftermath. Okay.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
I do like the detail here, Ben, because I think
the question that I posed earlier about how some of
this stuff jibed with you know, more religious outlooks. This
guy claimed to be able to dip right on into heaven,
you know, whereas I think when we think of ghosts
and content them, we think of ones that are sort
of still hanging around.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Oh yeah, yeah, he has this. Okay, So he writes prolifically.
Over the last a little less than thirty years of
his life. He has eighteen published theological works we could
call him, and even now in twenty twenty six, he
has more stuff that was never officially published. The guys
on a roll. This is his new mission, and all
(18:26):
of his or a lot of his proposed discoveries, like
the pivotal ones, are way different from earlier accepted Christian thought.
To your question, he describes immediate death as kind of
going to a bus station or an airport terminal for
the dead.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
You get the waiting room, beetlejuice.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
It just so yeah, yeah, So he says the real
architecture of the afterlife is going to be three heavens
and then three hells and this, you know, this airport
terminal kind of you get stranded there, and if you
love yourself too much, then you end up going to
one of the hells, and if you love other people enough,
(19:12):
you end up going to one of the heavens.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Are these are there degrees of these hells like Delta?
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Is there a hierarchy?
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Is there?
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Like medallion Lewest lowest level of lowest level of heaven
is steerage exactly right, you know.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
But boy do they dance down there?
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Boy do they just cut a rug, do a jig?
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Such a can you imagine? What what is economy basic heaven?
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Well, you're not allowed any carry ons unless you pay extra, okay, right,
you don't get to pick your seat, right.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
And uh, you have to negotiate the arm rest.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
That's right, if you're in the middle. If you're in
the middle, then technically they both should be yours.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
The medal is like comfort plus, I guess, and then
the top one is you know, proper business class, Yes, right,
Delta one right, and so you can.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Tell we're located in Atlanta with Delta Ta.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
We're a bit cartoonishally in that sandbox. Yes, so our
buddy Manny or Swedenborg, because I'm being a bit too
familiar with him. He further said, I pretty much have
the world's most the metaphysical version of the best passport ever.
(20:31):
I have encountered and spoken with spirits on every possible
plane of hell and heaven and that weird waiting room.
I'm kind of like, he said Robin Williams character in
What Dreams May Come? He loved that movie. He loved
it so dear I did it.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
The thing I like best about that is that it
later would get remade in a movie titled Looper.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Oh yeah, oh man, Looper. Have you guys seen no
of you seen Looper.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
I've seen Looper. Yeah, I do like Looper. I don't
understand the connection between Looper and What Dreams May Come.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
It's kind of about the spiritualism movement, really, is what
Looper is.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
It could also think it was about time travel types.
It could it could be a very long running, terrible
inside joke between me and Ben Bolan.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
I see, okay, I am out in the cold on
this one. Guys.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
All I remember about What Dreams May Come is that
hell was Hella bad cgi. That's all I remember. Max
von Seido on it.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Oh yeah, he's a psychologist. You really see the glowing
edges of the green screen around all of the bodies.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
I remember.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
I remember wanting that movie to be better than what
it was.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Beautiful. I remember watching it and thinking if I didn't
speak English, I would love this even more. It also
features a good friend of the show, Cuba Gooding Junior
uh nol.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
That's an inside joke between me and Beat. That's not
a joke at all, just a harrowing tale being accosted
by Kuba. It's true, Jonathan, have we not told you
this story? I have not heard it.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
But I think, boy, unless your listeners have never heard
the story, maybe we could move it along and we'll
talk about it.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
He forced me a chicken wing, that's all. He forced
bild a chicken.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
So along with okay, along with clearly What Dreams May
Come and Looper fan Swedenborg, there's another guy who influences
the spiritualism movement. His name is Franz Mesmer. He's the
inventor of the very humbly named mesmerism.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
I can't say it without wiggling your fingers.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Yeah, okay, so let's get some quick background on Franz.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Absolutely, yeah, why don't you give it to us? Jonathan
all right?
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Yeah, So eighteenth the tree, So we're still talking at
seventeen hundreds here Australian healer. By the time you get
all the way up into early mid century nineteenth century.
The idea is that he was talking about we're starting
to make their way over to uh, the not so
New World at this point, but you know, the United States,
(23:07):
and uh we have a great quote from the Smithsonian
which is quote mesmer proposed that everything in the universe,
including the human body was going.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
By Jonathan Nold Dylan and I are so sorry. Could
you please do it in one of your legendary European accents? Oh?
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Yes, quote because of the European curators of the Smithsonian.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Sure, here we go. Quote.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Uh, let's see, I'll do I'll do English because I
feel good about that, right, So we'll do nice posh English.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
I feel great about that. Yeah, here we go.
Speaker 5 (23:47):
Messmen proposed that everything in the universe, including the human body,
was governed by a magnetic fluid that could become imbalanced,
causing illness, but wive in his hands over a patient's body,
he induced a mesmurized, if not a state that allowed
him to manipulate the magnetic force and restore ealth. Amateur
(24:09):
mesmerists became a popular attraction at parties and parlors, a
few proving skillful enough to attract paying customers. So we
awake in from a mesmeric trance claimed to have experienced
visions of spirits from another dimension.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
God, it look like a pocket or two.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Thank you. A man's got of heart, hasn't he?
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Uh yeah, I I so little little thing I want
to throw in here that's interesting to me is you
have to keep in mind that this is also around
the time when uh, the scientific world.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Is starting to investigate electromagnetism. Right, magnetism itself had been
observed for millennia, but this is a time where electromagnetism
is starting to be examined. Not understood yet.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
But exam It wasn't until the insane clown Posse came
along that we fully understood and they really asked, how
do magnets work?
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Yeah, so you can you know, you're seeing forces that
are able to act upon one another without any visible interaction, right,
So that I think also helps support these beliefs that
something spiritual either is happening there or could also happen.
(25:31):
Because if you can have an invisible force in front
of you, like you can see that there's something happening,
but you can't see what the actual force is, then
why not a spiritual force as well?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
So what was gravity? I mean fully, I mean it
would have been under so.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
That would that didn't come out until the two thousand
centri bullet hadn't been born.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Yet, right right right? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (25:54):
No, but I mean the notion of a gravity being
an invisible force.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Yeah, but I gea, you see the effects, right, but
you don't see the mechanism at place exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
It's also a little less sexy than magnets because you
can totally use magnets to do all kinds of woo
woo looking stuff.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Sure, yeah, absolutely people did. Yeah, So we have one
more guy to add to our origin story here, Andrew Jackson.
Wait for Davis, so not the other Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson.
Davis comes along way after Manny and Mesmer, and this
(26:32):
guy strikes me as I'm gonna be unfair. Here, he
strikes me as kind of a a train kid like.
He strikes me as one of those woo woo guys
you might see in certain areas of different cities. Here
we have little five.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Right, he's walking around with a dog with a bandana.
Maybe maybe reading your cards, you.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Know, right, yeah, yeah, nailed the dude. He's a self
described seer and he's and he's a faith healer. And
he says, Okay, I'm going to take the ideas of
Mesmer and Swedenborg and I'm going to put them together
and I'm going to go into Mesmeric trances, and Nanny
(27:15):
Swedenborg himself is going to speak to me. And I'll
record these messages and I'll publish them in a huge book,
actually very long book called The Principles of Nature, Divine
Revelations and Devoice to Mankind. Hmm, very humble. I'm intrigued.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
This also makes me think of a Joseph Smith kind
of story. Right, It's somewhere like now a step removed,
where you're not talking to an angel or to God,
but rather someone who claims that they commune with God
and angels and demons as well.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
I know a guy who knows a guy always a
little sus when someone says they're the only one they
can do the thing, and that you get, you know,
speak through them.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
I mean there was a long history of that though,
right session Exactly, you look at you look at the
the Catholic Church, and that's the whole foundation of you
have the designated person who is able to commune directly
with God, starting with the Pope and then trickling down.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
And forgive me for being suspicious of those folks as well.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Yeah, but saying that, saying that, uh, you know, they
were cribbing from well written notes that have been around
for ages, right, And we.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Were also going to at this point note that we
are not casting aspersion on anybody's personal beliefs or short ideology.
Your path is your own. We might not follow it.
I think the four of us know each other pretty well,
and I feel like I'm pretty read up on your
(29:00):
small spiritual leanings. But we are acting in good faith,
unlike some mediums when we say there's always a question
about profit and popularity with these people, uh, p R
O F I T as well as p R O
F p R O P H E T. So probably
(29:21):
got the profit. You got there. I got there eventually,
it took a long walk for it.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Well, I mean, I think, you know, there's a lot
of things that are very, very powerful and you know,
useful in religion, and I think people there are certain
people that follow it as a way of life that
allows them to be empathetic and kind to others. And
you know, your beliefs being your own. But I just
personally kind of have a problem with someone that says
(29:47):
I'm the only.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Way for you to talk to God like that just bugs.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Me inherent If everyone in religion conducted their way similar
to how mister Rodgers did, I would be I would
be beside myself and I would love to see that.
But I understand exactly where Ben and Nola are coming from. Like,
I too respect people's beliefs, but I do not respect
(30:13):
those who would prey upon others and specifically target vulnerabilities
that their target audience have in an effort to benefit themselves.
And unfortunately, when we're talking about spiritualism, maybe not even
a majority, but certainly a significant number of practitioners were
(30:34):
doing exactly that.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Yeah, and it starts with uh, we'll give you the
straight poop. It starts with a prank that goes out ahead.
So all right, it's eighteen forty seven. Our guy, Andrew
Jackson Davis takes the work or the beliefs of these
other two dudes, mixes it all together and says, bit
(30:56):
of a cosmic gumbo. Bit of a cosmic gumbo. We
used to joke about that on set. And that's eighteen
forty seven right. One year later, in eighteen forty eight,
he believes that his prediction about his spiritual understandings is
proven correct due to the infamous Fox Sisters. This is
(31:19):
the origin story kicking into high gear. March thirty first,
eighteen forty eight, Hydesville, New York, upstate. He got a
teenager name's Maggie Fox. She's fourteen. She's got a younger
sister named Kate who is eleven. They have an older
sister named Leah that will get to later. She's living
somewhere else. But these kids start doing a little pranky prank.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Yeah, And if you hear the story and you think, wow,
this sounds kind of similar to other stories I have
heard largely in the realm of poltergeist activity. You know,
there's I would say there's some commonalities that exist across
these stories, not to say that everyone involved in them
(32:03):
manufactured the situation themselves, but certainly that was the case
in some of these occurrences. And this is a prime example,
and it makes me think, like, I don't know about
you two, I'm sure that this is the case. But
if you've ever told a little lie thinking this is
(32:24):
just going to help me smooth this situation over, I
just want this situation smoothed over, for whatever it may be.
I'm going to tell this little lie. It'll get me
through this. I'll be okay. But then people pay more
attention to that little lie than they would have if
you had just not said anything, and it would have
been fine. So then you have to keep committing to
the little lie, and you keep committing and like your
(32:45):
life becomes very much entangled with this little lie until
it's become a huge lie. I feel a lot of
empathy toward the Fox sisters because I feel like they
got caught up in that and at a certain point
they could not extricate themselves because there was just way
too much pressure to keep the story going.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Right. Yeah, okay, so again, I love that comparison. These
are children, To be clear, these are not cynical, you know,
late middle aged grifters. These are kids who one day
tell their mom something is talking to us by knocking
(33:26):
on the walls or the furniture, and we'll show you, mom.
And the mom asked, how many children do I, mother
fox have? And the spirit appeared to communicate the correct
number of children through taps and knocks, and they later
(33:50):
you'll hear this story describe different ways. But sometimes they'll
say Maggie and Kate intentionally sought out a neighbor and
chase them down to tell them the story. But then
other times it sounds like they just ran into their
neighbor and they said, hey, every night around bedtime, we
(34:10):
hear a series of knocks and raps and they're definitely
coming from some other worldly, intelligent force. And the neighbor says,
you're like eleven and fourteen. Are you serious? But I
don't have cable, I don't have television yet, I do
need to be entertained. I'll go to your house. You
(34:33):
show me what's happening. And they persuade the neighbor yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Yeah, well, and it's it's an effective demonstration because to
the neighbor's perspective, there's no visual cause of the rapping
sound like, it's not obvious to the neighbor. And so
the next conclusion they jump to is that some unseen
(34:58):
force is making this noise. And again, we're in an
era where unseen forces are becoming more and more of
a known quantity. We don't understand them fully yet, but
we're talking about things like electromagnetic radiation, where again you
can't see it, but you can see the effects. So
why not.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
And we've got to give credit here to the Fox family.
They hear this news word is spreading around they're part
of town, that something odd is going on at their household,
and they make the decision that everyone should make at
the beginning of a horror film. They say, we're going
(35:40):
to leave.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
Too bad, we can't stay.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Too bad, we can't stay. And they sent Maggie and
Kate to live with their older sister, Leah Fox her
married name was Leah Fox Fish over Rochester. And that's
where things get interesting, because Rochester has its own sort
of mil you or folklore or past.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Yeah, this will become the birthplace of numerous movements, right,
not just spiritualism, but others as well, which to me
is just kind of again it's a convergence that I
find really fascinating, Like I would love to learn more
about the history and development of Rochester and what were
(36:29):
the root causes or maybe root elements that kind of
allowed this to foment, because it is maybe it's just
coincidence and it has no connective tissue whatsoever. But I
did not know any of this before we started putting
these notes together.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it's your earlier point. This is
the birthplace of Mormonism. The finger links reach it as
well as Millerism, which eventually becomes Seven Day Adventism. So
the local population, we could say, is already primed to
question existing ideology or spiritual belief systems, and they're already
(37:12):
primed to be open minded to alternate pitches.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking after I
posed that initial question about, like, you know, the religiosity
of the United States, because it was at this point
secularism was starting to creep in a little bit more
and so it was a little more almost in vogue
to question some of these norms, which is I think
(37:40):
really the attitude that allowed this stuff to flourish.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
This is where we get to the upper crust of Rochester.
Isaac and Amy Post. Now they're doing very well for
their time and their area. They're not having the best
personal life because they've recently lost a daughter. So they
are intrigued by the story of the Fox sisters, especially
(38:13):
this rumor that's been growing that says the spirit they
spoke to in their original home belonged to a peddler
who had been murdered five years earlier at the farmhouse.
No one can prove it. Law in order SVU is
not really a thing, right, nor is honestly forensic science.
So from there, based off this story, the Post family says, hey,
(38:38):
Fox kiddos, come to our house. We want to see
if you can communicate with spirits in a different location.
Whatever they heard, they were convinced. They said, hey, we
can hear the Knox the raps. We think the older
sister Leah is a medium as well. She put us
in touch with our daughter. Know our daughter has recently died.
(39:03):
This would prove to be the engine of spiritualism's success.
To the earlier point, targeting the vulnerable.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
Yeah, grief is a powerful motivator, as we will see
time and again when we go through these stories that
it's what allows the opportunity for people who would take
advantage of others.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Hope as a hell of a drug, right it is,
it is truly if you're offered that whatever, however long
of a shot it might seem. And I've been watching
this show, The Pit on HBO. It's like a hospital show,
and there's a plot line where these parents have basically
their child has potentially become brain dead due to a
(39:47):
drug overdose, and they keep insisting on further tests and
further tests and further tests, holding out the hope that
one of these tests is going to be the one
that truly allows them to believe that he might come back.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
And it's it's.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
It's heartbreaking to see because the doctor the whole time
kind of knows that it's futile, but he also sort
of on the fence because he wants to give them
a little bit of hope. But some of his colleagues
are like, it's false hope. But that's a tricky thing.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
This would also be when we'd see it had already
been a technique for you know, for as long as
humans have been able to manipulate one another, but sort
of a codified approach to what we would call cold
reading or or worm reading. You know, obviously, cold reading
is where you go very general with your statements and
then you start to see what's hitting and you gradually
(40:39):
get more specific.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
I'm hearing you, I'm hearing you know a a person,
I'm hearing their name is.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
Some people are better added than There's some mentalism involved
in this idea of sort of reading the room and
then listening and looking for certain tells, right, And I mean,
folks that can do this convincingly are employing a lot
of interesting techniques and bits of psychology.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
And of course sometimes it's not totally cold either. Sometimes
they might go in with a point or two of
data that they can use to kind of establish a
foundation and then build upon it. And I'm not even
suggesting that everyone who does this does so with the
knowing intent to deceive. It may be that they are
not really consciously doing this, but that is the same.
(41:38):
They're essentially following the same roadmap. They just didn't do
it in a malicious way. But there are plenty who have.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Yeah, they drink through flavor age. Perhaps they believe. Yeah, okay,
all right, we're here for the long haul.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
So the troubles, the troubles jonestown. Do we want to
throw in any others in here?
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Oh gosh, we'll keep going. We'll see where we go.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
I mentioned nine to eleven one you did have a.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Drink as a cocktail proposition and the okay, so the
Post family they are impressed. They, for whatever reason, they
genuinely feel the Fox sisters have connected them to their
daughter who died too soon. They stage another get together
in the largest public hall in Rochester. We're talking four
(42:31):
hundred people coming to watch this show. Afterwards, skeptics examine
the Fox sisters and they say, we have no idea. Oh,
they could have faked these noises. They don't have any
little hammers, clackers, or wood blocks or moroccas, which is
a thing we don't know exist. At the time, they
said to each.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
Other, same reason why they were having so much trouble
with what dreams may come?
Speaker 1 (42:57):
You know? Right? Right? All right there we get to
we can fast forward a bit. This is where we
see our buddy Davis. He hears about the Rochester incident
and he says, oh, Fox sisters come to my home
in the Big Apple. Let me watch your show for myself.
(43:18):
I want to figure out if it jibes with what
I think about the universe and everything involved. And he
knew this is again that third cynical point. He knew
that if he co signed these kids and said they
were legitimate mediums, then this could be good for his
(43:40):
career as a self professed prophet.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
Yeah, typical agent.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Right right, looking for the angle and the percentage. Thus
was the birth of spiritualism, and business was hot, guys.
It was really taken off.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Yeah, it turns out at a lot of people are dying,
so that that kind of helped.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
It is a it is a regular occurrence. It is
sort of part of life. So spiritualism really really was
off to the races. To your point, Jonathan, it appealed
to Americans weary of the kind of more pedantic, kind
of calvinistic approach to predestination. It allowed people that considered
(44:26):
themselves to be reform minded open to new ideas of
the mid nineteenth century. It was a great way of
you know, kind of bolstering some of the beliefs about oneself.
Speaker 3 (44:40):
Right, Yeah, you could feel like you could really manifest
your destiny.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Ut. Yeah, it has this new car smell to it.
Spiritualism a lot of we talked about how a lot
of Christian denominations, Catholicism in particular, make this big deal
about the concept of intercession. You've got to have a
middleman and between you and divinity. Spiritualism takes that old
chestnut and kind of rolls it across the table. American
(45:08):
spiritualists in particular are saying, Okay, I can have through
a medium or through my own training, direct communication with
those who have passed. They will give me insight into
the ultimate fate of the soul, which means that I
can have a direct hand in my own salvation. This
(45:28):
is the can do American attitude of the time. Forget
the stuffy books, forget those crotchety, creepy priests. I'm gonna
roll up my sleeves, I'm gonna hold a seance. I
will be the person who saves my soul.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
Yeah, I mean, you can see elements of this to
this day, right, Like you know, the Parker Brothers Weija
board is in many ways the descendant of this kind
of thing where you get a group of friends together
and you're able to commune with either spirits or other
ethereal entities that that communicate through you, like everything from
(46:07):
automatic writing to there was telegraphy, there were spiritual telegraphy
at this time, Like there were all these different, uh,
possible conduits of communication that were being explored and exploited
by mediums of the of the age.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
Oh, and the Fox Sisters go on tour, right, This
was always interesting to me. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
They conducted their sessions in various homes of affluence, you know,
of community members across the country. One in particular or
infamous series of sessions took place in the parlor of
the Barnum Hotel, which was owned by the cousin of
mister Barnum himself, the greatest, the greatest showman. They were
(46:54):
born every minute, one hundred percent. I don't think is
lost on us, the the the irony there. Maybe it's
I don't know irony is the right word, but it
is fascinating that the Barnum you know, was such a
huckster himself, and then this name shows up here as well.
And they did three shows a day around this giant
table where they would invite as many as thirty folks
(47:15):
to attend. They did at ten o'clock, a five o'clock,
and an eight o'clock, occasionally taking time aside for private
meetings in between.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
I imagine those were costs a little more.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
I like the fact that you know they did the
whole stage door thing like this really does feel like
the equivalent of going to see a Broadway show today.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
Oh, one hundred percent. Yeah. And there were plenty of people,
to be clear, who denounced the Fox Sisters as fakes.
And some people did correctly guess that they were just
cracking their joints their toes in particular, but a lot
of other people did believe if they were witnessing a
(48:01):
true paranormal phenomenon. The admission was one dollar at the time.
The visitors were not your average hey walking into New Yorker.
This show did, to your point, Jonathan, become the thing
to see, like going to see Hamilton, right, whatever the
modern Broadway hit is. And so all of the all
(48:24):
the great minds and the upper crust wanted to hang
out with the Fox Sisters. You see philanthropists like New
York Society guys Horace Greeley, the editor of the New
York Tribune. You see poets like William Colin Bryant. You
also see abolitionist and social activists like William Lloyd Garrison,
(48:46):
and each of these people walks away from the show
most of the time at the beginning, they walk away
from the show thinking that whatever these spirits said absolutely supports, validates,
and encourages their pre existing beliefs.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
And you know, we talked about this recently with the
incredible hosts of the podcast Hoaxed about the incident involving
also two young girls who kind of faked picture a
picture a photograph of these fairies, and it came up
that they were pretty easily spotted as fake, but the
(49:23):
power of belief was so strong that many learned individuals
were taken in by it, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
who is like the king of like reasoning and deduction
through his character. Anyway of Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
His name will come back into play in this conversation
as well, because he was we'll talk more about the
reasons why he began to embrace spiritualism. But the yeah,
actually the calling fairies, like the birth of photography is
another thing that I think helps contribute to the right
(50:00):
of spiritualism because again you're able to capture a moment
in time, and it seems.
Speaker 1 (50:05):
A little woo woo even now, like with that does
that work?
Speaker 3 (50:07):
It's crazy And it has a connection with death right
because in Victorian England, one of the big ideas behind
grief was to take a post mortem photo with your
recently deceased family member and the rest of the family
all gathered around them to preserve that memory forever. So
(50:28):
there is an association between the supernatural and technology because
to most people photography seemed akin to magic.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
It is, like I said, I mean, I'm not even
being sarcastic. So many of those things, even to this
day feel that way to me. I mean, I know
they can be explained, but it is, for all intents
and purposes, a certain kind of magic. Not to mention
versions of what you're talking about, Jonathan, pre photography, where
things like death masks were created, you know, to preserve
(51:00):
of a similar way, you know, the image of a
deceased loved.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
Shout out to everybody who just recited that Arthur C.
Clark quote in their head. And here we see that
the Fox sisters continue their they continue their path to stardom.
Leah will stay in New York for a while, and
Kate and Maggie go on the road Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Washington,
(51:28):
Philadelphia and more. For now, we're going to give the
Fox clan a break. We're going to learn how spiritualism
overall skyrocketed in popularity and then why it fell. That's
our flat twist right there, folks.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
Indeed, I am looking forward to it so huge. Thanks
to Jonathan Stricklin, the quizzer, who's here to be Thanks
to his to his face, and thank.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
You for being so well behaved today. Of course, I
mean like.
Speaker 3 (52:00):
You're you're talking about a subject that has fascinated me
since literally since childhood. So I was so excited to
be on here. I hope I did not interject too much.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
Not at all. But it is also clear why you
are the way you are.
Speaker 3 (52:16):
Wos fair?
Speaker 1 (52:18):
That's fair?
Speaker 3 (52:19):
All right, I'm gonna be quiet. Now, why don't we
outro the show?
Speaker 1 (52:21):
No? No, come on, you got to co sign us
on some of this. Uh. I think we can all
agree that we will a big, big thanks to our
guest super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fake and Dylan,
how do we go? How's our wija? Board looking for
this one. Sorry, what'd you say?
Speaker 2 (52:40):
That's that's the response I always get whenever I talked
to the Ouigi board.
Speaker 1 (52:44):
It's like, excuse, I'm sorry I didn't catch that. Check
back later as the Ouiji board might. Yeah, you, guys,
I am clear. I got years ago for uh for
my girl, I got a uh Guda Tama version of
a magic eight ball. Guda Tama is a very lazy
(53:05):
egg in Japanese culture. It's like a famous character and
it always says for another time. And that's what we're
doing today. Join us later in the week. We can't
wait to come back with part two of the Rise
and Fall the Spiritualism Movement, featuring none other than our
own Jonathan Strickland aka the Quister.
Speaker 2 (53:28):
Thanks, guys, huge, thanks to christ Frasiotis names Jeff Coats
here in Spirit, super producer, Max the Madman Williams and.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
His brother Alex Williams who composed this bang, and Bob
Big Big thanks to doctor Rachel Big Spinach, Lance aj
Bahamas Jacobs, and of course the Rude Dude's a Ridiculous crime.
If you like us, you'll love them. Everybody. Check out
the old episodes of Tech stuff about similar historical events.
(53:57):
We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 2 (54:05):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. Wait, I hear in other worldly
knock on that door? Who is that? It's our guest
super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
The ghostly apparition of Dylan Rapp tap tappin the very same,
very same, But that is a quote.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
You are, Noel Brown. I am Ben Bollen. We have been, uh,
we've been fascinated for a long time about the idea
of you know, wija boards and mediums and psychics, and
the fact that pretty much from the moment humans started
human being, everybody has been understandably concerned about what happens
(01:15):
after they die.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Oh a million percent. I mean it's it's the foundation
of so many belief systems and debates as to where
you go and how you get there, and who's right
and who's wrong. I mean, Ben, it's it often. It
gets people pretty heated.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
It does. People are at the risk of this beat
a hot take. People are a little bit sensitive about
whether or not an echo of you persist. When your
body fails, does your consciousness go somewhere does it simply disappear.
And like you said, Nol, there are tons of religions
and belief systems that claim to have the answer, but
(01:55):
humanity is yet to land on a shared universal explanation
that everybody and their mom takes as fact. It's not
to say people haven't tried, but in the spirit of
this for our series this week, this will be a
two parter, we decided to call up our own ghost
(02:16):
from years gone. The rumors are true. After we shout
this guy out in the credits all the time, we're
welcoming back, Jonathan Strickland, aka the Quister. But you're reformed now.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Right, Yeah, rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated. I'm
merely an elder statesman in podcasting.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Exaggerated by me. I'm always throwing around death it all
the time.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
If it's wishful thinking in the case of Noel. But
you know, we love each other obviously, obviously, so I'm
very flattered to have been asked back, especially on this topic.
Quick personal story, when I was a student in elementary
school way back when. We'll probably cover some of the
(03:03):
time period when we get there, because that's how old
I am. But when I was a student in elementary school, I,
to the surprise of no one here, would frequent the
school library and the section I consistently went to was
the quote unquote non fiction books about the paranormal and
(03:24):
the supernatural. So I would check out the same books
over and over, even like just rereading ones I had
read all the way through what.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Are we talking here? John? And are we talking?
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Like manuals on how to summon a specter?
Speaker 3 (03:39):
There were no Tobin spirit guides in our elementary school library. No,
I'm thinking about things like deep Fried Rat I think
was one of the names of one. It was all
about urban legends and things of that nature.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Those were popular, like at the scholastic book fairs, right
remember this, Yeah, like, yeah, all kinds of urban legend
books and conspiracy type books. Not to mention those kind
of There are books for kids that, when you look
back on them, were pretty grizzly.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
And scary stories to tell the dark. It's a banger.
It's some of the best folklore out there.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
My dad wrote some of those. So, but this was
when I was a kid, it was before that kind
of trend had started taking off. But I would read
all the books on things like you know, you know, lockness,
monster or ghost stories or things about spiritualism and mediums
and such. And one of my favorite stories I wanted
(04:32):
to relate to you before we really jump into it.
Have you guys heard of a fellow named James Tidwell?
Not okay, so mid nineteenth century. This guy he was
like he had he had the deck stacked against him.
He was really short, like somewhere around four foot two.
(04:52):
But he became a prominent spiritualist in Maryland, and the
Baltimore Sun even had the great story that I'll talk
about in the second. But anyway, he became known as
this incredibly charismatic person who, despite his stature, was able
to get an enormous following. But he also became known
(05:13):
for bilking people out of huge amounts of money in
an effort to try and get them connected to their
their deceased loved ones.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Now that doesn't sound like something one of these folks
would do.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
I know, right, So law enforcement became very interested in him,
and at that point he he made tracks which prompted
the Baltimore Sun to run the wonderful headline small Medium
at Large that.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
He made this whole story up Dombastard.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
We stared at this is the ridiculous history of this movement.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I was on board with this, Hootale.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Thanks, this is the ridiculous history of the spiritualist movement.
We have returned. No one really can prove what happens
after you die, to everybody else's satisfaction. Hence we have
(06:12):
things like spiritualism. How would we describe.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
That, well, Spiritualism is a movement that started in the
nineteenth century in America and Europe, you know, based on
the notion that one could communicate with the dearly departed,
and that they in some shape or form had the
(06:39):
ability to interact with the living. And these you know,
kind of self proclaimed spiritualists for better or words, whether
they actually believed in these abilities or whether they were
just outright you know, hucksters, sought to make contact with
the dead, usually through a form of seance. The term
(07:03):
medium is often thrown around as in being sort of
like a go between, uh, you know, to sort of
channel the the the dad, you know, and to crossover
from this mortal coil into you know, the the world beyond.
And you know, these spiritualists, some of them, I think,
actually genuinely did believe that they were able to contact spirits.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
We could even call them some of the original rappers
because they were wrapping knocking in terms of their communication,
kind of like clever hauns. Yeah, but that was but
but that was a scam. So you know, yeah, I'm
playing a seed with.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Some good to have some horse sense before you.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Little horse, little horse play horsing around guys. My, I
think I've maybe mentioned on the show before. My mother
was an opera singer and an opera that she often
did that I remember very fondly. It's got some pieces
in It's more of like a operetta, I guess, but
it's I don't know, it doesn't feel like a traditional opera.
It's called The Medium by gian Carlo Manati. Folks may
(08:13):
know this composer from a very popular piece he did
called A Mall and the Night Visitors, which is a
tale of the you know, the wise men and all
of this stuff. It's often, you know, performed at churches.
But The Medium is about this woman who is a medium,
who has a mute assistant named Toby, who kind of
(08:34):
does all of the light behind the scenes rap tap
tapping and stuff and it doesn't get a lot of love,
and I really think some of the music in it
is utterly gorgeous. So do check out the medium if
anyone's interested in, you know, seeing a musical rendition of
the kind of stuff we're talking about today.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Yeah, you'll see it in a lot of film and fiction.
This trope is a hard baked, deeply ingrained phenomenon in
horror and fantasy and entertainment because from the nineteenth to
the twentieth century this was a genuine craze. This was
(09:11):
all over the zeitgeist. People from all imaginable demographics and
walks of life genuinely seemed to believe that a combination
of science and religion could create a new understanding of
what happens after you die, could prove and after life existed,
(09:31):
and that further, certain very special people were able to
bridge the gap between the living and the debt.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Yeah, you might actually wonder why this even happened, Like,
why did this trend.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Because you could pay them?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Yes, yes, that's the very important part, is the payment part,
which stretches into today. But yeah, we'll talk later about
some of the elements. But I think it was a
convergence of factors that came together that kind of sowed
the seeds that would grow into spiritualism. Because it's one
thing to say this was a craze, but it's another
(10:07):
thing to say, but why that craze at that time?
And I don't think there's a single answer for that,
but I do think there's a lot of really interesting
different answers that all contribute to it.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Well, it's always made me wonder too. I mean, being
the United States was still quite a religious place, you know,
as so many of these religious leaders, how this stuff
wasn't looked upon as heresy or in some way offensive
to God, because I mean, this idea that of the
(10:40):
ghosts exists kind of implies that, I mean, they didn't
go to heaven.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Well, they were also this interesting because here we get
into something that would be called heresy in the past.
And as we'll see, not all of the skeptics were
necessarily atheist. A lot of the most famous ones were,
but there were some people who were skeptics because this
stuff in the spiritualist movement did not jibe with their
(11:08):
existing understanding of religion. So like, okay, you're always gonna
hear it this way, folks, Our story begins in upstate
New York in the eighteen forties. So many things do.
But we'll get to that. But I think we can argue,
fellow ridiculous historians, the story actually begins way way earlier,
(11:28):
when an absolute legend named Emmanuel Swedenborg or Seedenborg starts
doing some really weird stuff. Oh my god, he's such
a weird dude. He's an episode. We should do an
episode on Johnatha.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Can you make with the star trek puns for Swedenborg?
I could, but I was immediately thinking of Gutenberg. Also
true because Gutenberg the musical. The villain consistently mispronounces Gutenberg's
name is Gutenborg. Ah, let's not forget about Steve Gutenborg
from the Police Academy movies that Ben's loves so dearly it's.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Uh, and also mispronounced someone's name. It's one of those
tiny nags right with his little moves. Uh. We likes
doing that, sure does. And we also have to know
for the record, our buddy Manny, I'll call him Manny.
He is cartoonishly Swiss. His name For all of us
(12:24):
etymology nerds, his name literally translates to something like sweden Castle,
Can we call him sweets? Yeah, of course, yeah he was.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
He was so sweet Swiss that he always had a knife,
a toothpick, a.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Saw tweezer song in his heart.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
He was like, uh, he would uh, he would return
cheese if it didn't have holes in it. That's how
Swiss this guy is.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
And if he got a piece of cheese with with
no holes in it, he damn well use that Swiss
army knife to make some He sure did.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
And who knows back then, maybe they just called it
the army knife. That's true, sort of like the Irish
car bomb.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Nobody in Ireland wants to hear about the God as
a beverage. Come on, as a as a novelty cocktail.
Come on, that's like having it's like over here having
a cocktail called the nine to eleven.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Let's uh, let's let's leave the truck, let's leave the
troubles behind us. Do talk about and talk about this guy,
because so we're talking about someone who is formative in
the foundation of spiritualism, but this is also someone who
was a legit smarty pants type of person, right, We're
(13:34):
not Yeah, we're not talking about someone who's who just
like spontaneously gets this this uh, this hair, this wild
hair about about us convening with the dead. This is
someone who was a learned man.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yeah, gives it some sand, you know, I mean we
I think we're all, especially on stuff they don't want
you to know. Often fascinated between the crossover between science
and the paranormal. We have an interview with an incredible
physicist named Russell targ who was responsible for training CIA
agents how to become psychic. The man who is incredibly learned,
(14:14):
has a background in all of the foundations of science,
and yet truly does believe that these things are possible,
which really makes you think twice about, you know, calling
someone like that a fraud.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Right, Yeah, and our buddy Manny at this time to
that beautiful point about science and spirituality converging again. He's
born in sixteen eighty eight, he lives until about seventeen
seventy two. To your point, Jonathan, he's a scientist, he's
an engineer. But wait, there's more. As Billy Bays was
(14:45):
wont to say, he's an astronomer, a philosopher, an inventor,
a Christian theologian. And then in seventeen forty one, he
is fifty three years old, and he starts to have
things that rock his lived experience. He has very vivid
dreams and he has waking visions. And these are not
(15:08):
one offs. They accumulate and escalate over time, all leading
to Easter weekend. It's April sixth, seventeen forty four, and
Jesus Christ from earlier reaches out to Manny.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Directly from earlier? Is they see himself from before?
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Right?
Speaker 4 (15:30):
I mean?
Speaker 3 (15:31):
And he had a lot of stuff to do that weekend.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
He's a busy guy.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
What would he do is the question that you often
see on people's little wristband. That's right, yeah, tell you
what he would do. He would reach out to Swedenborn.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
And say, hey, you guys humans, great hustle on the
whole Christianity thing, humbly named. I need you to write
the truth about the world and life and death and
heaven and hell. I need you to write something called
the Heavenly Doctrine. You're the only guy who can do this.
(16:06):
Thanks great call.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
This is some gold Tablets Joseph Smith type origin story.
You know, Emlily made me think of that one hundred percent.
But the question then becomes like, is this a person
who is mentally unwell, who is having an episode, or
is this someone who is divinely contacted uh and compelled
to write, you know, a work that could be seen
(16:28):
as a sacred.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Text, or or possibly someone who sees opportunity. Because I
don't think it's I don't think it's either or I
think there's a third option.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
That's very true.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
There is a secret third thing that you just illuminated
so well, so to accomplish this task that he was
tasked with. And again we're just we're speaking speculatively here.
God gave Swedenborg. Uh, well is it was it Jesus
or was it God? I guess they're one and the same,
depending on you know.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Yeah, there's the Holy Ghost of hanging around somewhere too.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
But yeah, they franchised.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
So he gifts Swedenborg with some some abilities.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Yeah, he says, Okay, Manny, you can now freely visit
heaven and Hell, and you can talk with the angels,
you can talk with the demons, you could talk with
other spirits. And then this continues for years. By the way,
Manny feels that he is in communication with the divine
(17:28):
and later God or Jesus Christ if you like, tells manny. Oh,
by the way, the last judgment was also a real thing.
It already happened in seventeen fifty seven. You're in the aftermath. Okay.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
I do like the detail here, Ben, because I think
the question that I posed earlier about how some of
this stuff jibed with you know, more religious outlooks. This
guy claimed to be able to dip right on into heaven,
you know, whereas I think when we think of ghosts
and content them, we think of ones that are sort
of still hanging around.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Oh yeah, yeah, he has this. Okay, So he writes prolifically.
Over the last a little less than thirty years of
his life. He has eighteen published theological works we could
call him, and even now in twenty twenty six, he
has more stuff that was never officially published. The guys
on a roll. This is his new mission, and all
(18:26):
of his or a lot of his proposed discoveries, like
the pivotal ones, are way different from earlier accepted Christian thought.
To your question, he describes immediate death as kind of
going to a bus station or an airport terminal for
the dead.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
You get the waiting room, beetlejuice.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
It just so yeah, yeah, So he says the real
architecture of the afterlife is going to be three heavens
and then three hells and this, you know, this airport
terminal kind of you get stranded there, and if you
love yourself too much, then you end up going to
one of the hells, and if you love other people enough,
(19:12):
you end up going to one of the heavens.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Are these are there degrees of these hells like Delta?
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Is there a hierarchy?
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Is there?
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Like medallion Lewest lowest level of lowest level of heaven
is steerage exactly right, you know.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
But boy do they dance down there?
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Boy do they just cut a rug, do a jig?
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Such a can you imagine? What what is economy basic heaven?
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Well, you're not allowed any carry ons unless you pay extra, okay, right,
you don't get to pick your seat, right.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
And uh, you have to negotiate the arm rest.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
That's right, if you're in the middle. If you're in
the middle, then technically they both should be yours.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
The medal is like comfort plus, I guess, and then
the top one is you know, proper business class, Yes, right,
Delta one right, and so you can.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Tell we're located in Atlanta with Delta Ta.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
We're a bit cartoonishally in that sandbox. Yes, so our
buddy Manny or Swedenborg, because I'm being a bit too
familiar with him. He further said, I pretty much have
the world's most the metaphysical version of the best passport ever.
(20:31):
I have encountered and spoken with spirits on every possible
plane of hell and heaven and that weird waiting room.
I'm kind of like, he said Robin Williams character in
What Dreams May Come? He loved that movie. He loved
it so dear I did it.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
The thing I like best about that is that it
later would get remade in a movie titled Looper.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Oh yeah, oh man, Looper. Have you guys seen no
of you seen Looper.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
I've seen Looper. Yeah, I do like Looper. I don't
understand the connection between Looper and What Dreams May Come.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
It's kind of about the spiritualism movement, really, is what
Looper is.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
It could also think it was about time travel types.
It could it could be a very long running, terrible
inside joke between me and Ben Bolan.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
I see, okay, I am out in the cold on
this one. Guys.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
All I remember about What Dreams May Come is that
hell was Hella bad cgi. That's all I remember. Max
von Seido on it.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Oh yeah, he's a psychologist. You really see the glowing
edges of the green screen around all of the bodies.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
I remember.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
I remember wanting that movie to be better than what
it was.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Beautiful. I remember watching it and thinking if I didn't
speak English, I would love this even more. It also
features a good friend of the show, Cuba Gooding Junior
uh nol.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
That's an inside joke between me and Beat. That's not
a joke at all, just a harrowing tale being accosted
by Kuba. It's true, Jonathan, have we not told you
this story? I have not heard it.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
But I think, boy, unless your listeners have never heard
the story, maybe we could move it along and we'll
talk about it.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
He forced me a chicken wing, that's all. He forced
bild a chicken.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
So along with okay, along with clearly What Dreams May
Come and Looper fan Swedenborg, there's another guy who influences
the spiritualism movement. His name is Franz Mesmer. He's the
inventor of the very humbly named mesmerism.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
I can't say it without wiggling your fingers.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Yeah, okay, so let's get some quick background on Franz.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Absolutely, yeah, why don't you give it to us? Jonathan
all right?
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Yeah, So eighteenth the tree, So we're still talking at
seventeen hundreds here Australian healer. By the time you get
all the way up into early mid century nineteenth century.
The idea is that he was talking about we're starting
to make their way over to uh, the not so
New World at this point, but you know, the United States,
(23:07):
and uh we have a great quote from the Smithsonian
which is quote mesmer proposed that everything in the universe,
including the human body was going.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
By Jonathan Nold Dylan and I are so sorry. Could
you please do it in one of your legendary European accents? Oh?
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Yes, quote because of the European curators of the Smithsonian.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Sure, here we go. Quote.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Uh, let's see, I'll do I'll do English because I
feel good about that, right, So we'll do nice posh English.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
I feel great about that. Yeah, here we go.
Speaker 5 (23:47):
Messmen proposed that everything in the universe, including the human body,
was governed by a magnetic fluid that could become imbalanced,
causing illness, but wive in his hands over a patient's body,
he induced a mesmurized, if not a state that allowed
him to manipulate the magnetic force and restore ealth. Amateur
(24:09):
mesmerists became a popular attraction at parties and parlors, a
few proving skillful enough to attract paying customers. So we
awake in from a mesmeric trance claimed to have experienced
visions of spirits from another dimension.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
God, it look like a pocket or two.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Thank you. A man's got of heart, hasn't he?
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Uh yeah, I I so little little thing I want
to throw in here that's interesting to me is you
have to keep in mind that this is also around
the time when uh, the scientific world.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Is starting to investigate electromagnetism. Right, magnetism itself had been
observed for millennia, but this is a time where electromagnetism
is starting to be examined. Not understood yet.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
But exam It wasn't until the insane clown Posse came
along that we fully understood and they really asked, how
do magnets work?
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Yeah, so you can you know, you're seeing forces that
are able to act upon one another without any visible interaction, right,
So that I think also helps support these beliefs that
something spiritual either is happening there or could also happen.
(25:31):
Because if you can have an invisible force in front
of you, like you can see that there's something happening,
but you can't see what the actual force is, then
why not a spiritual force as well?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
So what was gravity? I mean fully, I mean it
would have been under so.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
That would that didn't come out until the two thousand
centri bullet hadn't been born.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Yet, right right right? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (25:54):
No, but I mean the notion of a gravity being
an invisible force.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Yeah, but I gea, you see the effects, right, but
you don't see the mechanism at place exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
It's also a little less sexy than magnets because you
can totally use magnets to do all kinds of woo
woo looking stuff.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Sure, yeah, absolutely people did. Yeah, So we have one
more guy to add to our origin story here, Andrew Jackson.
Wait for Davis, so not the other Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson.
Davis comes along way after Manny and Mesmer, and this
(26:32):
guy strikes me as I'm gonna be unfair. Here, he
strikes me as kind of a a train kid like.
He strikes me as one of those woo woo guys
you might see in certain areas of different cities. Here
we have little five.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Right, he's walking around with a dog with a bandana.
Maybe maybe reading your cards, you.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Know, right, yeah, yeah, nailed the dude. He's a self
described seer and he's and he's a faith healer. And
he says, Okay, I'm going to take the ideas of
Mesmer and Swedenborg and I'm going to put them together
and I'm going to go into Mesmeric trances, and Nanny
(27:15):
Swedenborg himself is going to speak to me. And I'll
record these messages and I'll publish them in a huge book,
actually very long book called The Principles of Nature, Divine
Revelations and Devoice to Mankind. Hmm, very humble. I'm intrigued.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
This also makes me think of a Joseph Smith kind
of story. Right, It's somewhere like now a step removed,
where you're not talking to an angel or to God,
but rather someone who claims that they commune with God
and angels and demons as well.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
I know a guy who knows a guy always a
little sus when someone says they're the only one they
can do the thing, and that you get, you know,
speak through them.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
I mean there was a long history of that though,
right session Exactly, you look at you look at the
the Catholic Church, and that's the whole foundation of you
have the designated person who is able to commune directly
with God, starting with the Pope and then trickling down.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
And forgive me for being suspicious of those folks as well.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Yeah, but saying that, saying that, uh, you know, they
were cribbing from well written notes that have been around
for ages, right, And we.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Were also going to at this point note that we
are not casting aspersion on anybody's personal beliefs or short ideology.
Your path is your own. We might not follow it.
I think the four of us know each other pretty well,
and I feel like I'm pretty read up on your
(29:00):
small spiritual leanings. But we are acting in good faith,
unlike some mediums when we say there's always a question
about profit and popularity with these people, uh, p R
O F I T as well as p R O
F p R O P H E T. So probably
(29:21):
got the profit. You got there. I got there eventually,
it took a long walk for it.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Well, I mean, I think, you know, there's a lot
of things that are very, very powerful and you know,
useful in religion, and I think people there are certain
people that follow it as a way of life that
allows them to be empathetic and kind to others. And
you know, your beliefs being your own. But I just
personally kind of have a problem with someone that says
(29:47):
I'm the only.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Way for you to talk to God like that just bugs.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Me inherent If everyone in religion conducted their way similar
to how mister Rodgers did, I would be I would
be beside myself and I would love to see that.
But I understand exactly where Ben and Nola are coming from. Like,
I too respect people's beliefs, but I do not respect
(30:13):
those who would prey upon others and specifically target vulnerabilities
that their target audience have in an effort to benefit themselves.
And unfortunately, when we're talking about spiritualism, maybe not even
a majority, but certainly a significant number of practitioners were
(30:34):
doing exactly that.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Yeah, and it starts with uh, we'll give you the
straight poop. It starts with a prank that goes out ahead.
So all right, it's eighteen forty seven. Our guy, Andrew
Jackson Davis takes the work or the beliefs of these
other two dudes, mixes it all together and says, bit
(30:56):
of a cosmic gumbo. Bit of a cosmic gumbo. We
used to joke about that on set. And that's eighteen
forty seven right. One year later, in eighteen forty eight,
he believes that his prediction about his spiritual understandings is
proven correct due to the infamous Fox Sisters. This is
(31:19):
the origin story kicking into high gear. March thirty first,
eighteen forty eight, Hydesville, New York, upstate. He got a
teenager name's Maggie Fox. She's fourteen. She's got a younger
sister named Kate who is eleven. They have an older
sister named Leah that will get to later. She's living
somewhere else. But these kids start doing a little pranky prank.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Yeah, And if you hear the story and you think, wow,
this sounds kind of similar to other stories I have
heard largely in the realm of poltergeist activity. You know,
there's I would say there's some commonalities that exist across
these stories, not to say that everyone involved in them
(32:03):
manufactured the situation themselves, but certainly that was the case
in some of these occurrences. And this is a prime example,
and it makes me think, like, I don't know about
you two, I'm sure that this is the case. But
if you've ever told a little lie thinking this is
(32:24):
just going to help me smooth this situation over, I
just want this situation smoothed over, for whatever it may be.
I'm going to tell this little lie. It'll get me
through this. I'll be okay. But then people pay more
attention to that little lie than they would have if
you had just not said anything, and it would have
been fine. So then you have to keep committing to
the little lie, and you keep committing and like your
(32:45):
life becomes very much entangled with this little lie until
it's become a huge lie. I feel a lot of
empathy toward the Fox sisters because I feel like they
got caught up in that and at a certain point
they could not extricate themselves because there was just way
too much pressure to keep the story going.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Right. Yeah, okay, so again, I love that comparison. These
are children, To be clear, these are not cynical, you know,
late middle aged grifters. These are kids who one day
tell their mom something is talking to us by knocking
(33:26):
on the walls or the furniture, and we'll show you, mom.
And the mom asked, how many children do I, mother
fox have? And the spirit appeared to communicate the correct
number of children through taps and knocks, and they later
(33:50):
you'll hear this story describe different ways. But sometimes they'll
say Maggie and Kate intentionally sought out a neighbor and
chase them down to tell them the story. But then
other times it sounds like they just ran into their
neighbor and they said, hey, every night around bedtime, we
(34:10):
hear a series of knocks and raps and they're definitely
coming from some other worldly, intelligent force. And the neighbor says,
you're like eleven and fourteen. Are you serious? But I
don't have cable, I don't have television yet, I do
need to be entertained. I'll go to your house. You
(34:33):
show me what's happening. And they persuade the neighbor yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Yeah, well, and it's it's an effective demonstration because to
the neighbor's perspective, there's no visual cause of the rapping
sound like, it's not obvious to the neighbor. And so
the next conclusion they jump to is that some unseen
(34:58):
force is making this noise. And again, we're in an
era where unseen forces are becoming more and more of
a known quantity. We don't understand them fully yet, but
we're talking about things like electromagnetic radiation, where again you
can't see it, but you can see the effects. So
why not.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
And we've got to give credit here to the Fox family.
They hear this news word is spreading around they're part
of town, that something odd is going on at their household,
and they make the decision that everyone should make at
the beginning of a horror film. They say, we're going
(35:40):
to leave.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
Too bad, we can't stay.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Too bad, we can't stay. And they sent Maggie and
Kate to live with their older sister, Leah Fox her
married name was Leah Fox Fish over Rochester. And that's
where things get interesting, because Rochester has its own sort
of mil you or folklore or past.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Yeah, this will become the birthplace of numerous movements, right,
not just spiritualism, but others as well, which to me
is just kind of again it's a convergence that I
find really fascinating, Like I would love to learn more
about the history and development of Rochester and what were
(36:29):
the root causes or maybe root elements that kind of
allowed this to foment, because it is maybe it's just
coincidence and it has no connective tissue whatsoever. But I
did not know any of this before we started putting
these notes together.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it's your earlier point. This is
the birthplace of Mormonism. The finger links reach it as
well as Millerism, which eventually becomes Seven Day Adventism. So
the local population, we could say, is already primed to
question existing ideology or spiritual belief systems, and they're already
(37:12):
primed to be open minded to alternate pitches.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking after I
posed that initial question about, like, you know, the religiosity
of the United States, because it was at this point
secularism was starting to creep in a little bit more
and so it was a little more almost in vogue
to question some of these norms, which is I think
(37:40):
really the attitude that allowed this stuff to flourish.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
This is where we get to the upper crust of Rochester.
Isaac and Amy Post. Now they're doing very well for
their time and their area. They're not having the best
personal life because they've recently lost a daughter. So they
are intrigued by the story of the Fox sisters, especially
(38:13):
this rumor that's been growing that says the spirit they
spoke to in their original home belonged to a peddler
who had been murdered five years earlier at the farmhouse.
No one can prove it. Law in order SVU is
not really a thing, right, nor is honestly forensic science.
So from there, based off this story, the Post family says, hey,
(38:38):
Fox kiddos, come to our house. We want to see
if you can communicate with spirits in a different location.
Whatever they heard, they were convinced. They said, hey, we
can hear the Knox the raps. We think the older
sister Leah is a medium as well. She put us
in touch with our daughter. Know our daughter has recently died.
(39:03):
This would prove to be the engine of spiritualism's success.
To the earlier point, targeting the vulnerable.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
Yeah, grief is a powerful motivator, as we will see
time and again when we go through these stories that
it's what allows the opportunity for people who would take
advantage of others.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Hope as a hell of a drug, right it is,
it is truly if you're offered that whatever, however long
of a shot it might seem. And I've been watching
this show, The Pit on HBO. It's like a hospital show,
and there's a plot line where these parents have basically
their child has potentially become brain dead due to a
(39:47):
drug overdose, and they keep insisting on further tests and
further tests and further tests, holding out the hope that
one of these tests is going to be the one
that truly allows them to believe that he might come back.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
And it's it's.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
It's heartbreaking to see because the doctor the whole time
kind of knows that it's futile, but he also sort
of on the fence because he wants to give them
a little bit of hope. But some of his colleagues
are like, it's false hope. But that's a tricky thing.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
This would also be when we'd see it had already
been a technique for you know, for as long as
humans have been able to manipulate one another, but sort
of a codified approach to what we would call cold
reading or or worm reading. You know, obviously, cold reading
is where you go very general with your statements and
then you start to see what's hitting and you gradually
(40:39):
get more specific.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
I'm hearing you, I'm hearing you know a a person,
I'm hearing their name is.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
Some people are better added than There's some mentalism involved
in this idea of sort of reading the room and
then listening and looking for certain tells, right, And I mean,
folks that can do this convincingly are employing a lot
of interesting techniques and bits of psychology.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
And of course sometimes it's not totally cold either. Sometimes
they might go in with a point or two of
data that they can use to kind of establish a
foundation and then build upon it. And I'm not even
suggesting that everyone who does this does so with the
knowing intent to deceive. It may be that they are
not really consciously doing this, but that is the same.
(41:38):
They're essentially following the same roadmap. They just didn't do
it in a malicious way. But there are plenty who have.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Yeah, they drink through flavor age. Perhaps they believe. Yeah, okay,
all right, we're here for the long haul.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
So the troubles, the troubles jonestown. Do we want to
throw in any others in here?
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Oh gosh, we'll keep going. We'll see where we go.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
I mentioned nine to eleven one you did have a.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Drink as a cocktail proposition and the okay, so the
Post family they are impressed. They, for whatever reason, they
genuinely feel the Fox sisters have connected them to their
daughter who died too soon. They stage another get together
in the largest public hall in Rochester. We're talking four
(42:31):
hundred people coming to watch this show. Afterwards, skeptics examine
the Fox sisters and they say, we have no idea. Oh,
they could have faked these noises. They don't have any
little hammers, clackers, or wood blocks or moroccas, which is
a thing we don't know exist. At the time, they
said to each.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
Other, same reason why they were having so much trouble
with what dreams may come?
Speaker 1 (42:57):
You know? Right? Right? All right there we get to
we can fast forward a bit. This is where we
see our buddy Davis. He hears about the Rochester incident
and he says, oh, Fox sisters come to my home
in the Big Apple. Let me watch your show for myself.
(43:18):
I want to figure out if it jibes with what
I think about the universe and everything involved. And he
knew this is again that third cynical point. He knew
that if he co signed these kids and said they
were legitimate mediums, then this could be good for his
(43:40):
career as a self professed prophet.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
Yeah, typical agent.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Right right, looking for the angle and the percentage. Thus
was the birth of spiritualism, and business was hot, guys.
It was really taken off.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Yeah, it turns out at a lot of people are dying,
so that that kind of helped.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
It is a it is a regular occurrence. It is
sort of part of life. So spiritualism really really was
off to the races. To your point, Jonathan, it appealed
to Americans weary of the kind of more pedantic, kind
of calvinistic approach to predestination. It allowed people that considered
(44:26):
themselves to be reform minded open to new ideas of
the mid nineteenth century. It was a great way of
you know, kind of bolstering some of the beliefs about oneself.
Speaker 3 (44:40):
Right, Yeah, you could feel like you could really manifest
your destiny.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Ut. Yeah, it has this new car smell to it.
Spiritualism a lot of we talked about how a lot
of Christian denominations, Catholicism in particular, make this big deal
about the concept of intercession. You've got to have a
middleman and between you and divinity. Spiritualism takes that old
chestnut and kind of rolls it across the table. American
(45:08):
spiritualists in particular are saying, Okay, I can have through
a medium or through my own training, direct communication with
those who have passed. They will give me insight into
the ultimate fate of the soul, which means that I
can have a direct hand in my own salvation. This
(45:28):
is the can do American attitude of the time. Forget
the stuffy books, forget those crotchety, creepy priests. I'm gonna
roll up my sleeves, I'm gonna hold a seance. I
will be the person who saves my soul.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
Yeah, I mean, you can see elements of this to
this day, right, Like you know, the Parker Brothers Weija
board is in many ways the descendant of this kind
of thing where you get a group of friends together
and you're able to commune with either spirits or other
ethereal entities that that communicate through you, like everything from
(46:07):
automatic writing to there was telegraphy, there were spiritual telegraphy
at this time, Like there were all these different, uh,
possible conduits of communication that were being explored and exploited
by mediums of the of the age.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
Oh, and the Fox Sisters go on tour, right, This
was always interesting to me. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
They conducted their sessions in various homes of affluence, you know,
of community members across the country. One in particular or
infamous series of sessions took place in the parlor of
the Barnum Hotel, which was owned by the cousin of
mister Barnum himself, the greatest, the greatest showman. They were
(46:54):
born every minute, one hundred percent. I don't think is
lost on us, the the the irony there. Maybe it's
I don't know irony is the right word, but it
is fascinating that the Barnum you know, was such a
huckster himself, and then this name shows up here as well.
And they did three shows a day around this giant
table where they would invite as many as thirty folks
(47:15):
to attend. They did at ten o'clock, a five o'clock,
and an eight o'clock, occasionally taking time aside for private
meetings in between.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
I imagine those were costs a little more.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
I like the fact that you know they did the
whole stage door thing like this really does feel like
the equivalent of going to see a Broadway show today.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
Oh, one hundred percent. Yeah. And there were plenty of people,
to be clear, who denounced the Fox Sisters as fakes.
And some people did correctly guess that they were just
cracking their joints their toes in particular, but a lot
of other people did believe if they were witnessing a
(48:01):
true paranormal phenomenon. The admission was one dollar at the time.
The visitors were not your average hey walking into New Yorker.
This show did, to your point, Jonathan, become the thing
to see, like going to see Hamilton, right, whatever the
modern Broadway hit is. And so all of the all
(48:24):
the great minds and the upper crust wanted to hang
out with the Fox Sisters. You see philanthropists like New
York Society guys Horace Greeley, the editor of the New
York Tribune. You see poets like William Colin Bryant. You
also see abolitionist and social activists like William Lloyd Garrison,
(48:46):
and each of these people walks away from the show
most of the time at the beginning, they walk away
from the show thinking that whatever these spirits said absolutely supports, validates,
and encourages their pre existing beliefs.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
And you know, we talked about this recently with the
incredible hosts of the podcast Hoaxed about the incident involving
also two young girls who kind of faked picture a
picture a photograph of these fairies, and it came up
that they were pretty easily spotted as fake, but the
(49:23):
power of belief was so strong that many learned individuals
were taken in by it, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
who is like the king of like reasoning and deduction
through his character. Anyway of Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
His name will come back into play in this conversation
as well, because he was we'll talk more about the
reasons why he began to embrace spiritualism. But the yeah,
actually the calling fairies, like the birth of photography is
another thing that I think helps contribute to the right
(50:00):
of spiritualism because again you're able to capture a moment
in time, and it seems.
Speaker 1 (50:05):
A little woo woo even now, like with that does
that work?
Speaker 3 (50:07):
It's crazy And it has a connection with death right
because in Victorian England, one of the big ideas behind
grief was to take a post mortem photo with your
recently deceased family member and the rest of the family
all gathered around them to preserve that memory forever. So
(50:28):
there is an association between the supernatural and technology because
to most people photography seemed akin to magic.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
It is, like I said, I mean, I'm not even
being sarcastic. So many of those things, even to this
day feel that way to me. I mean, I know
they can be explained, but it is, for all intents
and purposes, a certain kind of magic. Not to mention
versions of what you're talking about, Jonathan, pre photography, where
things like death masks were created, you know, to preserve
(51:00):
of a similar way, you know, the image of a
deceased loved.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
Shout out to everybody who just recited that Arthur C.
Clark quote in their head. And here we see that
the Fox sisters continue their they continue their path to stardom.
Leah will stay in New York for a while, and
Kate and Maggie go on the road Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Washington,
(51:28):
Philadelphia and more. For now, we're going to give the
Fox clan a break. We're going to learn how spiritualism
overall skyrocketed in popularity and then why it fell. That's
our flat twist right there, folks.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
Indeed, I am looking forward to it so huge. Thanks
to Jonathan Stricklin, the quizzer, who's here to be Thanks
to his to his face, and thank.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
You for being so well behaved today. Of course, I
mean like.
Speaker 3 (52:00):
You're you're talking about a subject that has fascinated me
since literally since childhood. So I was so excited to
be on here. I hope I did not interject too much.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
Not at all. But it is also clear why you
are the way you are.
Speaker 3 (52:16):
Wos fair?
Speaker 1 (52:18):
That's fair?
Speaker 3 (52:19):
All right, I'm gonna be quiet. Now, why don't we
outro the show?
Speaker 1 (52:21):
No? No, come on, you got to co sign us
on some of this. Uh. I think we can all
agree that we will a big, big thanks to our
guest super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fake and Dylan,
how do we go? How's our wija? Board looking for
this one. Sorry, what'd you say?
Speaker 2 (52:40):
That's that's the response I always get whenever I talked
to the Ouigi board.
Speaker 1 (52:44):
It's like, excuse, I'm sorry I didn't catch that. Check
back later as the Ouiji board might. Yeah, you, guys,
I am clear. I got years ago for uh for
my girl, I got a uh Guda Tama version of
a magic eight ball. Guda Tama is a very lazy
(53:05):
egg in Japanese culture. It's like a famous character and
it always says for another time. And that's what we're
doing today. Join us later in the week. We can't
wait to come back with part two of the Rise
and Fall the Spiritualism Movement, featuring none other than our
own Jonathan Strickland aka the Quister.
Speaker 2 (53:28):
Thanks, guys, huge, thanks to christ Frasiotis names Jeff Coats
here in Spirit, super producer, Max the Madman Williams and.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
His brother Alex Williams who composed this bang, and Bob
Big Big thanks to doctor Rachel Big Spinach, Lance aj
Bahamas Jacobs, and of course the Rude Dude's a Ridiculous crime.
If you like us, you'll love them. Everybody. Check out
the old episodes of Tech stuff about similar historical events.
(53:57):
We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 2 (54:05):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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