0:05

Let's take a walk. On

0:07

my fourth day at the Cassadeca Spiritualist

0:09

Camp, I take a walk around Colby

0:12

Alderman Park, sprawling affair

0:14

that's now a nationally recognized

0:16

historic district and added in the waterproof

0:18

historical markers to match. Today

0:21

we're gonna be talking about the decline

0:23

of the Fox Sisters and one

0:25

of my most significant readings at

0:27

Cassadeca. But first, let's

0:29

take a stroll through Cassadeca, beginning

0:31

at the intersection of and

0:34

I'm not getting Mediumship Way

0:36

and Psychic Road. I know,

0:38

and I took a lot of audio as I was just

0:41

wandering around this neighborhood for consecutive

0:43

weeks, so to give you an idea of

0:45

the vibe. There's no

0:48

side box here. Feels very npr

0:50

of me to do. It feels very this American life.

0:52

I feel like a fucking dork. When

0:55

you get to Cassadega, you pass these

0:57

white cement pillars on Cassadeca

0:59

Road, and to your left is the Cassadega

1:02

Hotel where I'm going to be staying. It's

1:04

this big, haunted looking building that got

1:06

rebuilt in the twenties after burning

1:09

down, but has been out of the hands of

1:11

the Cassadega camp Proper for many

1:13

decades now, which, as we've discussed before,

1:15

has led to a lot of confusion

1:17

and drama in the community because

1:20

there are readings done at the hotel,

1:22

but not ones that are sanctioned by the

1:24

Spiritualist Proper. In many

1:26

ways, having this hotel bought out from

1:28

under them due to their own kind of chronic

1:30

brokenness is one of the hardest hits

1:32

Cassadega has ever taken. The hotel

1:35

is really important. It shares a name

1:37

with the community and has the only

1:39

amenities and restaurant, which

1:41

you need to know is called Sinatra's

1:43

Restaurante, where karaoke

1:46

nights get a little too loud for

1:48

the proper mediums across the street's

1:50

taste. On the days the restaurant

1:53

isn't open, you can either survive

1:55

on chocolate bars from the bookstore

1:57

or walk to the nearest gas station half

2:00

hour away. I opt for

2:02

both of these at multiple points in my trip,

2:05

and as we've heard several times, the mediums

2:07

who were trained at Cassadega don't

2:09

have the highest opinion of

2:11

the mediums and tarot readers who

2:13

work out of the hotel. Across

2:16

the street is a more sanctioned

2:18

area, the Andrew Jackson Davis

2:20

Building, this white, one floor wooden

2:23

structure that serves as both DeCamps,

2:25

bookstore, administrative office,

2:28

and activity center where I've

2:30

already been to message services and a

2:32

table tipping class, and sat in on

2:34

a class called Healing one oh one with

2:36

Reverend Dr Phil. I was not allowed

2:39

to record this class, but they were very welcoming

2:41

and we learned all about our chakras and Eastern

2:43

concept not originally associated

2:45

with spiritualism. We love it. And I spoke

2:47

to a particularly gossipy student who

2:49

told me that she knew that spiritual

2:52

healing wasn't a substitute for medicine,

2:54

but the healers at Cassadega had

2:56

done more than her physical therapist of

2:58

her had. Let's

3:00

keep moving, as I learned from the bookstore

3:03

manager selling a green. The bookstore

3:05

is a moneymaker for the camp. It's one of the

3:07

few places where the mediums can capitalize

3:09

on the average tourist's interests, selling

3:12

rarer spiritualist texts for the

3:14

true student, but also overpriced

3:17

crystals T shirts declaring

3:19

Cassadega where Maybury meets

3:21

the Twilight Zone. Two references

3:23

that make it no wonder. They're struggling to recruit

3:26

younger members. They sell candles

3:28

and magnets and those chocolate bars I was telling

3:30

you about. This is where the spiritualists

3:32

make good on people seeking mediumship

3:35

as comfort and self help. The

3:37

walls are lined with tarot cards

3:39

that their religion doesn't technically

3:41

endors. There are self help guides,

3:44

relationship manuals, guides

3:46

to the phases of the moon, one local

3:48

book about a boy who died of rabies.

3:51

I don't know did not look into this. Further

3:54

on the other side of the pillars are non

3:56

camp sanctioned crystal shops, stores

3:59

that have prices is jacked up into Los

4:01

Angeles territory. These unsanctioned

4:03

shops are even more low ceilinged

4:06

affairs with ten dollar clear

4:08

courts, crystals and tarot reading

4:10

rooms with walls so thin that

4:12

you can hear the college girl crying

4:14

about why her boyfriend won't take her back

4:17

while paying seventy five bucks for

4:19

a twenty minute reading. Walk down

4:21

a little further and you'll hit Sea Green's

4:23

Ghost Museum ten dollars for admission,

4:25

a business originally called the Cassadega

4:28

History museum, but was then rebranded

4:30

into a Haunted House due to lack of

4:32

interest in history. And

4:35

my favorite, the tiny post

4:37

office in Cassadega, one that

4:39

at every point seems to be

4:41

barely holding onto its justification

4:44

for existing. I walked back into

4:46

the camp. Down Stephens Street. You

4:48

pass a few double decker houses and apartments.

4:51

A big one is called Harmony Hall. It's

4:53

a ten apartment ramshackle structure

4:56

with a big sign out front. Some of

4:58

the mediums live here, others just actice

5:00

hear. What I do know, because I know you're wondering,

5:03

is that people fuck in Harmony

5:05

Hall, or at least they have fucked, because

5:07

I received roundabout word of at

5:09

least two babies that have been conceived

5:12

within its walls. I

5:14

walk all the way up to the biggest park

5:16

on this side of the camp called Seneca

5:18

Park, named for who founder George

5:21

Colby claimed was his indigenous

5:23

spirit guide who led him to the stolen

5:25

indigenous land he bought and converted

5:27

into Cassadega, a likely

5:30

story that will be unpacking next week.

5:33

I try to meditate and be present,

5:36

but it's hard because all I can hear is the

5:38

sound of roosters in the distance.

5:40

There are so many roosters

5:42

at this camp. I've run

5:45

out of things to explore, and I realized

5:47

that I'm kind of killing time. I'm

5:49

nervous because I'm about to get a reading

5:51

with the Reverend. Dr. Lewis,

5:54

a medium raised by mediums,

5:56

who doesn't just encourage you to record

5:58

your reading. He records for you,

6:00

handing me a high quality c D ram

6:03

upon payment. Do you know what

6:05

I had to go through so that you

6:07

could hear this audio? Have

6:10

you hand the met before? Kay?

6:13

Uh? Send me your stats where you just stop

6:15

me? Want you get

6:17

take it for you? For you?

6:21

It's time We've got to talk to Reverend Dr

6:23

Lewis. I'm going in so this week, not

6:25

only am I going to give you a look and

6:27

to listen to what a one on one spiritualist

6:30

reading is like, We're also going

6:32

to close out the story of Spiritualism's

6:34

founders, the Fox Sisters, at the

6:36

inflection point where the ideas

6:38

they popularized belonged to the

6:40

world and no longer to themselves.

6:43

How are you feeling? I feel like we should get a theme

6:45

song going. I okay,

6:47

it's starting awesome.

7:01

Shodakay.

7:44

Welcome back, listener, we have so

7:46

much to discuss. In our

7:48

last episode, we took a little detour to

7:50

speak with the people who run Cassadega

7:52

today, from the mediums themselves

7:54

to people who run the camps

7:57

day to day operations. And next week

7:59

we're going to take look at the camp's origin

8:01

story and all of the American appropriative

8:04

mess that comes with it. But before we can

8:06

get there, we've got to follow the story of American

8:09

Spiritualisms founders, the Fox

8:11

sisters, Leah, Maggie, and

8:13

Kate Fox to their stories end

8:15

and take a look at how their religion didn't

8:17

just outlive them, but sort

8:20

of killed them too. We left off

8:22

in eighteen fifty two and the

8:24

Foxes Leah now thirty

8:27

nine, Maggie nineteen, and Kate

8:29

fifteen went to Philadelphia

8:31

and it was there that Maggie met

8:33

a boy, and not just any boy,

8:36

a thirty two year old man, and so

8:39

not a boy, a very rich man.

8:41

His name was Alicia Clark Kane,

8:44

an Arctic explorer from a wealthy

8:46

Philadelphia family, you know, like one of

8:48

those rich guys that's like I can have a

8:50

job like like. But

8:53

anyways, that was what he was doing by the time he met

8:55

Maggie. Kane was a successful

8:57

explorer and he took an interest in

9:00

Maggie Fox. Definitely not

9:02

spiritualism. He asked her out

9:04

and took her on a date to his brother's

9:07

grave. A little weird, but

9:10

I guess a good place to bring a Fox sister,

9:12

and she did become pretty interested in him. Things

9:14

he did up quickly, and soon enough he was professing

9:16

his love for her, vowing to end

9:18

his engagement that his parents were forcing

9:21

him into. All while knowing that they

9:23

would never approve a match

9:25

with a middle class, new money girl

9:27

with no generational assets who

9:29

made her living talking to ghosts. Kane

9:32

kept her a secret from his family and

9:34

gave her the first of many ultimatums.

9:37

Yes, he loved her, but he could

9:39

only accept her as his wife

9:42

if she gave up the religion that she'd founded

9:44

with her sisters. Of course, Leah

9:46

Fox despised him to

9:48

some extent. This was sister Lee protectiveness,

9:51

but it could also be seen as a power struggle between

9:54

Leah and Alicia Caine to retain

9:56

control over Maggie Fox's

9:58

life. Kane's letters,

10:01

Uh will not endear you to him. He

10:03

says things like this, Oh, how much

10:05

I wish that you would quit this life of dreary

10:07

sameness and suspected deceit, he

10:10

would say to her in a series of deeply

10:12

nagging letters. In another, he

10:14

says this, I need hardly say that

10:17

I am gratified to find that you write so ably.

10:19

You have more brain than I gave you credit For

10:22

just one more, I promise you could

10:24

never lift yourself to my thoughts and my objects.

10:27

I can never bring myself down to yours.

10:30

What a dream boat. And

10:34

around this time, the Fox sisters

10:36

were securing some of their biggest supporters

10:38

ever, including their very first

10:41

president. During a trip to d C,

10:43

President Franklin Pierce and First Lady

10:46

Jane Pierce saw their eleven year old

10:48

son die before their eyes when

10:50

a train they were on derailed. Jane

10:52

Pierce w later do a mediumship

10:55

session with Maggie Fox, and

10:57

the sisters also met with a number of congressmen

11:00

and other DC locals. The religion

11:02

was catching on in a huge way,

11:04

in spite of charges of fraudulence

11:07

and the fluctuating reputations of the sisters

11:09

themselves. The next spring, Maggie's

11:12

new boyfriend Kane left for another Arctic

11:14

expedition, but not before

11:16

Maggie gave into his wishes and

11:18

agreed to leave spiritualism

11:21

and get an education according to his

11:23

specifications. While he was gone.

11:25

Maggie's departure from the fold put

11:28

extra pressure on a sixteen

11:30

year old Kate Fox, who was understandably

11:32

getting pretty burnt out from being worked

11:34

so hard as a kid, in spite

11:36

of the fact that they were making more money than

11:39

ever, more than seven times the

11:41

annual salary of the average female

11:43

factory worker. A few

11:45

years passed as Spiritualism

11:47

continues to expand independently

11:50

of the Sisters. By this time, it was

11:52

estimated that there were several hundred thousand

11:55

spiritualists in the US, and many

11:57

high profile spiritualists were

11:59

trying to get the phenomena experienced

12:02

within the religion investigated

12:04

and validated by petitioning Congress

12:07

for a government committee. This was at

12:09

a time where many spiritualists were

12:11

especially enthusiastic about the

12:13

scientific promise of the religion,

12:16

but most government officials were still

12:18

very dismissive. A former Wisconsin

12:20

governor's request for a government committee

12:23

was privately mocked as a cult science

12:25

and quickly dismissed. In eighteen

12:27

fifty five, the first volume of spiritualist

12:30

history called Modern Spiritualism,

12:33

Its Face and Fantasies, Its Consistencies

12:36

and Contradictions, was published by

12:38

Eliab Kaprin, and it was also this

12:40

year that Kane returned to

12:42

Maggie Fox. Maggie was

12:44

understandably thrilled. She was

12:47

pretty bored, wasn't loving school, and

12:49

missed conducting sciences with her sisters,

12:51

but she was determined to marry Alicia

12:54

Clark Kane. But instead of doing

12:56

that, he showed up at her home several

12:59

days after back from his mission with

13:01

the document. He wanted her to sign disclaiming

13:04

any relationship they'd ever had

13:06

together and demanded that she returned

13:09

all his love letters. I this

13:12

motherfucker came back and

13:15

said, just kidding, the

13:17

engagement is off. Signed this n d

13:19

A like he was writing a Marvel movie or

13:22

something. It makes me mad, because at this point

13:24

both of them were very public

13:26

figures. Kane's memoir of

13:28

his most recent expedition would become a

13:30

best seller that was second only to the

13:32

Bible when it was published, and

13:35

Maggie Fox was the founder of this

13:37

on the Rise religious movement. But in

13:39

Kaine's view, she was a reputational

13:42

liability new money,

13:44

so he gives her this n d A. She agrees

13:46

to sign it, but he changes his mind

13:48

and Maggie forgave him for maybe one

13:50

of the meanest things I've ever heard of

13:53

someone you were supposed to marry doing to

13:55

you. They began to see each other again, something

13:58

that didn't affect his reputation but

14:00

certainly affected her as an

14:02

unmarried woman who was supposed

14:05

to be having sex before marriage.

14:07

The Fox family was not thrilled about this, but Kate

14:10

and their mother, Margaret, were said to be in

14:12

attendance when Maggie and Kane were

14:14

unofficially married in a private ceremony.

14:17

It was a rushed circumstance. Kane was

14:19

said to be leaving for a book tour in England

14:21

the next day and allegedly said

14:24

to the family, Maggie is my wife

14:26

and I am her husband. Wherever we

14:28

are, she is mine and I am hers.

14:31

This ceremony's authenticity was disputed

14:34

later, and that is important because

14:36

Kane became ill on the way to

14:38

London and died shortly

14:41

after arriving. Death of

14:43

a himbo. You hate to hear it. Maggie

14:45

was very upset She fell into a nervous

14:48

collapse when she learned this, and the Kane

14:50

family was swift to cut her out of

14:52

their bottom line, claiming that their marriage

14:54

was not legitimate and any money

14:57

that Kane had appeared to have left behind for

14:59

her care was not intended for

15:01

her at all. It's around this time that Maggie

15:03

became plagued with increasing struggles

15:05

with alcoholism and finances.

15:08

She wrote this to Kaine's brother after

15:10

his passing. I know that the Doctor must

15:13

have left some message for me, and know

15:15

that you will not refuse to deliver it, even

15:17

though it gives you much pain in recalling the

15:19

name of him whose memory is and

15:21

ever will be sacred. I have always

15:23

held a religious faith in the deep sincerity

15:26

of the Doctor's love. Meanwhile, Leah

15:28

and Kate struggled with a series of blows

15:31

in their religion. In June of eighteen

15:33

fifty seven, they participated in another

15:35

highly publicized investigation,

15:38

this one by the Boston Courier to

15:40

prove the existence of spirit communication.

15:43

Harvard Study and Spiritualism had taken

15:46

down famous spiritualist adjacent

15:48

figures. The Davenport brothers

15:51

to be nothing more than excellent magicians,

15:53

who could appear and disappear and

15:55

create music from seemingly disembodied

15:58

places. Leah and Kate prevail

16:00

in this investigation, but barely.

16:03

The results of the study said that

16:05

there was quote a little

16:07

rapping by the Foxes, easily

16:09

traceable to their persons, and easily

16:11

done by others, without the pretense of

16:14

spirit, nor a table or piano

16:16

lifted, or anything moved a single

16:18

hair's breadth. So ends this

16:21

ridiculous and infamous imposture

16:24

unquote. As always, there

16:26

are two sides to this. It was speculated

16:28

that at least one Harvard man disliked

16:31

the Fox sisters in particular because

16:33

they were a friend of the deceased

16:36

Alicia Kane, and thought that his involvement

16:38

with Maggie Fox had led to his downfall.

16:41

You know how Harvard guys are always

16:43

bonding over ship that makes no sense. Maggie

16:46

had managed to hold on to the only proof

16:48

she had of her relationship with Kane,

16:50

these love letters, and converted to

16:52

Catholicism in eighty eight

16:55

in Kane's honor. Leah soon married

16:57

a rich Quaker who was obsessed with her

16:59

good for her, which allowed her to retire

17:01

from public sciences after ten years

17:04

of public pressure, Suddenly Kate

17:07

Fox was the last sister

17:09

standing to carry the religion on

17:12

her back, and they were not going

17:14

to make it easy for her. All

17:20

Right, We're back in Cassadega to a

17:23

different kind of medium carrying

17:25

a different kind of spiritualism on his

17:27

back. When I get to the Reverend Dr

17:29

Lewis Gates's door, I've already gotten

17:31

a few readings done at the camp. The

17:34

first was a tarot reading at

17:36

the Hotel Cassadega, where I'm staying.

17:39

The camp trained mediums don't seem to have

17:41

a ton of respect for the card

17:43

readers at the hotel, and sure

17:46

the readings are maybe a little overpriced,

17:49

but there are Casadeca mediums who charged

17:51

comparably, and the rivalry itself

17:53

seems kind of silly. Once you

17:55

actually see a medium

17:57

or a psychic from both parties,

18:00

they're both good. And I got to see a

18:02

terror reader just inches from

18:04

my hotel room, which was, for the record,

18:07

tiny haunted feeling and

18:09

a bathroom the size of a closet that I

18:11

soon learned does not get hot water.

18:14

Oh, in the best part, a sign that says do

18:16

not let cats into the hotel.

18:19

Our hotel does not allow animals

18:21

on the premises, and beside

18:23

that sign, without fail, there

18:26

were always two cats mewing

18:29

at the top of their lungs trying

18:31

to get into my room from the outside. One

18:33

of the better things about Cassadega is it has

18:35

a community stray cat feeding program

18:38

called can You figure cats

18:40

Adega? It's called cats Adega.

18:43

That is truly one of the only bridges

18:46

between the Camp Association and

18:48

their local counterparts. My

18:50

terror reader at the hotel was with a

18:52

woman about my mom's age early sixties,

18:55

and like most of the psychics and mediums

18:58

who work at the hotel, she had us

19:00

this pretty cool sweetheart deal. They

19:02

get to practice upstairs in this hundred

19:04

year old haunted hotel. They're given their

19:06

own hotel room to give readings in, and

19:09

they get to design it as they choose. The

19:12

room I walk into is covered in

19:14

pastel's, there a ton of light, and

19:16

I have a tarot reading that I would say

19:18

is pretty solid. It's funny to me

19:20

that so many spiritualists dismissed

19:23

tarot cards as strictly a parlor

19:25

game, not because it's technically

19:28

incorrect, but you might recall

19:30

the seance was considered a

19:32

parlor game for many years,

19:34

and many spiritualists used early

19:37

versions of the talking board, which

19:39

would become the Uiji board, which

19:41

was also a parlor game. The

19:44

modern spiritualist movements relationship

19:46

with tarot cards is kind of interesting to me at

19:48

the camp. Formally, it is not something

19:51

that is used or done, and seems

19:53

to even be kind of looked down on by

19:55

some mediums. My theory of why

19:57

they no longer tend to appear in

20:00

modern spiritualism, which is much

20:02

more focused on the mental, is because

20:04

of how many tools were proven

20:06

to be fraudulent in their era. But

20:09

it's a good reading. The terror reader pulls

20:11

cards and asks me about myself

20:14

and interprets what's happening. She

20:16

pulls the world card, she pulls the

20:18

three of sorts, the four of sorts, a

20:20

need to rest after getting stabbed in the

20:23

heart three times, And like any

20:25

good reading experience, some of it

20:27

is just weird. She says things like this

20:30

spirit wants you to hear living

20:32

in the past makes you dead in the

20:34

present. That was by

20:37

Bill Belichick, the football coach. I

20:40

also got a reading done with a formal

20:42

Cassadeca medium before I go see

20:44

Louis Gates. I meet with a former

20:47

Wall Street employee who moved to Cassadega

20:49

after eleven. She has me sanitize

20:52

my hands and the pen and the pad of paper

20:54

she gave me to take notes, no recording

20:56

allowed, and the reading is hit

20:59

and miss, like many readings are.

21:01

I don't think I'm going to be a fashion designer. I

21:03

wear like three shirts and one

21:06

pants. But she does channel

21:09

my grandmother incredibly well, giving

21:11

specific details down to the red

21:13

scarf that she'd wear to a church on Sunday,

21:16

the fact that she secretly smoked cigarettes

21:18

to the point that she was only caught with them

21:20

on the day she died out of nowhere, the

21:22

fact that my dad was around the same age

21:25

his dad was when he passed away.

21:27

So by the time I get to Reverend Dr Lewis

21:30

Gates, I'm a little guarded

21:32

at this point of seeing him all over the camp healing

21:35

it Sunday services, giving spirit

21:37

messages, and teaching the table tipping

21:39

class I took. He's a third generation

21:41

medium, so he knows American spiritualism

21:44

probably better than almost anyone

21:46

practicing in the country. When

21:48

he opens the door to greet me, he

21:51

just starts the second

21:53

he opens the door. I entered the house

21:55

he practices in with his wife, Marie

21:57

Gates, and he guides me right inside.

22:00

Waste no time. He's got a ton

22:02

of energy and he's recording the

22:04

whole thing on this CD ROM

22:06

recorder, which I wasn't even aware was

22:08

a thing that existed. But that means

22:11

you can hear it too. If I'm not looking

22:13

at you, I'm not. I'm not ignoring you on where you're

22:15

there. I just watched what they're doing your stuff. I'm

22:17

looking over there somewhere else, not

22:19

ignore you. Know you're there. I've

22:22

heard on like four reces and so a

22:25

little wired, and yeah, he's

22:27

a little wired. I've never heard so

22:29

many ideas channeled and thrown

22:31

out there from a medium so quickly

22:34

in what seems to be this effortless motion

22:37

that felt kind of jarring and kind of cool.

22:40

Not everything resonated or made sense to

22:42

me. In fact, listening back to this,

22:44

even less made sense to me than I thought

22:47

did in the moment, but some of

22:49

it felt true and resonant. You're

22:51

just kind of pelt it with information

22:53

and ideas, and even if something isn't

22:55

making sense to you, as he looks past

22:58

your head to the wooden floorboards to describe

23:00

something like this, a gentleman sitting up

23:02

there on the floor. I haven't figured out what he's

23:05

doing yet. I just don't fear what he's doing yet.

23:07

I feel like this passing was extremely suddenly,

23:09

extremely quickly passed, a

23:12

quick pass, but I feel like he was quite sick. He

23:15

was sick, he says, his body

23:17

was giving up on it. You barely have time to register

23:19

it before he's moved on to something else, in

23:21

which he and I'm paraphrasing, Loki

23:24

says, I'll never get married. He says this a lot.

23:26

If you're married, I don't see it. So if you're married,

23:28

I don't see it in the path behind yourself,

23:31

okay. Also, he says, I don't

23:33

belong in Florida, have no business, and the state

23:35

of Florida. I'm not going to kick him out and a

23:37

business here? Do you live here? Thank

23:40

God? It's

23:42

interesting because the reverend doctor

23:44

is going back and forth between psychic

23:47

abilities and medium ship abilities

23:49

here. As I've been told

23:51

by pastor not pastor dead before,

23:54

all mediums are psychics, but not

23:56

all psychics are mediums. Psychic

23:58

work as I understand in it is

24:01

more of the prediction of the future,

24:03

reading your energy, talking about the fact

24:05

that you're never gonna get married. Mediumship

24:09

is the guy sitting on the floor who died

24:11

suddenly, not channeling something

24:13

from the generalized universe,

24:15

but a message from a specific individual

24:18

spirit. Both of these practices

24:21

line up cleanly with themes that spiritualists

24:23

have followed forever, themes

24:25

of self improvement, general optimism,

24:28

the Golden Rule, and comforting

24:30

messages from this group of spirits

24:33

that are meant to be your guides through

24:35

life. And spiritualists have

24:37

always used this very American

24:40

individualist idea that it's not just

24:42

about hearing from the dead, it's

24:44

about hearing from your dead personality.

24:47

And all during my time with Louis, he throws

24:50

a lot out there. There's a guy named Don following

24:52

me around. There's a lady named Helen following

24:54

me around. There are several archangels

24:59

with him from people in your vibrasion. You

25:01

have a gentleman, two of them sitting over

25:04

there. Now, Yeah, you heard that we have

25:06

two guys in the room. You have a guy

25:08

in your viversion. You have a guy in your vibration

25:10

named don God guide for you,

25:13

guide for use false people times, definitely

25:15

guide for you. If you warking to Michael with you right

25:17

now, to archangels, you are for

25:20

you. Two guys in the room. He

25:22

keeps throwing stuff out there, and he doesn't

25:24

seem to care or notice if it hurts my feelings.

25:27

You're not looking to do calm.

25:29

You work for the rest of your life. You're not

25:31

Molly Homemaker. You not Florence

25:33

Nightingale. But they need to know that. People may know

25:35

that I'm not that I tell

25:37

people something's in your life. It's

25:39

not your surface, not your monkey, which you shouldn't

25:42

be on the first name basis of the clowns. There's

25:44

a lot of midsized dogs sitting underneath your

25:47

chair walking in here, sitting

25:49

underneath your chair. It's information,

25:51

information information. My spirit

25:53

guides want me to buy a comedy club. There's

25:55

a woman in my vibration who says I swear

25:57

too much. Someone's putting the Star of Day

26:00

of the necklace on me. Am I Jewish? No,

26:02

I'm not Jewish. Well they

26:04

put that necklace on me. This is

26:06

the Casadega way. The skeptics

26:08

will tell you that this is a combination

26:11

of hot and cold reading tactics.

26:14

Hot readings being a technique where

26:16

a medium uses what they could know

26:18

about you before you enter the room.

26:20

In my case, it's not hard to

26:23

learn that I am a comedian, for example,

26:25

and cold reading techniques where

26:27

no previous information is known, and

26:29

the psychic or medium throws a

26:32

lot of stuff at the wall and

26:34

either backs off or goes

26:36

in further on one detail,

26:39

depending on the physical or

26:41

verbal affirmations the sitter gives

26:43

them. And sure that will make

26:45

sense. But when a piece of information

26:48

hits from a medium, any

26:50

of that logic goes completely

26:52

out the window. In those moments,

26:55

it's all real. And I mean that no

26:57

matter how much you know, no matter how many

27:00

times the reverend doctor tells you

27:02

you're never gonna get married,

27:09

Well, you meet somebody to walk the faculty. And that's

27:12

me really looking for when it hits,

27:14

when there's no explaining it, no

27:16

amount of conventional logic is going

27:19

to talk someone who believes in it out of

27:21

it even a little. And this phenomenon

27:23

of belief had a huge effect

27:26

on the final days of the Fox Sisters.

27:29

So let's check in with them.

27:40

The last twenty five years of the Fox sisters

27:43

Lives is at times baffling

27:45

and other times tragic. While

27:47

interest in spiritualism continued to rise

27:50

in the US, especially when the absurdly

27:52

high number of Civil War casualties

27:55

starting in eighteen sixty one created

27:57

this understandably increased

28:00

interest in speaking with the dead, Maggie

28:02

and Kate in particular, began

28:04

to suffer more and more. Spiritualists

28:07

in the US at this time generally

28:10

accepted Abraham Lincoln's leadership,

28:12

but because the religion was popularized

28:15

by Rochester abolitionists,

28:18

Spiritualism waned in popularity

28:20

in the American South during the war, but

28:23

in the North it surged in a

28:25

major way. Spiritualist papers

28:27

really pushed supporters of their religion

28:30

to enlist in support of the Union. Spiritualist

28:33

historian Emma Hardened wrote, quote

28:36

spiritualists total unconcern

28:38

on the subject of death made them the

28:40

bravest of soldiers unquote. The

28:43

spiritualists also got their second

28:45

first Lady supporter after losing

28:47

her eleven year old son Willie to typhoid

28:49

fever in eighteen sixty two. First

28:52

Lady Mary Todd Lincoln became the latest

28:54

White House residents to engage with

28:56

spiritualism, and was said to have held

28:58

as many as eight seance as in the

29:00

White House. Their interests in spiritualism

29:03

and spirit photography,

29:05

a physical spirit manifestation

29:07

that shows you you're dead in ghost form

29:09

in a compact souvenir. Pick continued

29:12

after her husband's assassination as

29:15

the war continued. In eighteen sixty four,

29:17

one of the most significant moments in the

29:19

attempts to organize American Spiritualists

29:22

took place at their first national convention

29:24

in Chicago. There had been

29:26

some previous attempts throughout the eighteen fifties,

29:29

but as with all things

29:31

Spiritualists, and I'll say it most

29:33

leftist groups in general, they

29:35

were plagued with an inability to agree

29:38

on anything, and their inherent

29:40

resistance to declaring leadership

29:42

and hardline rules made it

29:44

very difficult to all get on the same

29:47

page, which stagnated growth. The

29:49

Fox Sisters did not attend this first national

29:52

convention, but the Spiritualists

29:54

did manage to unify on one issue,

29:56

rehabilitating the image of their religion

29:59

from al gations of fraud. A

30:01

statement from the convention read this, American

30:04

Spiritualism means something more than table

30:06

tipping and trumpet blowing, trance, speaking,

30:08

and size, seeing that the highest

30:10

conditions it imposes are not abnormal

30:13

states of beautified unconsciousness,

30:15

but a vigorous, healthful working state

30:18

for the practical attainment of physical and

30:20

spiritual freedom, purity, and growth.

30:22

In the eighteen sixties, twenty something,

30:24

Kate was now the only sister who

30:26

practiced in public. She was

30:29

still innovating science techniques and

30:31

was now working in automatic writing,

30:33

a process that involved transcribing

30:36

messages with her left hand in reverse

30:38

script while verbally channeling

30:40

as normal. It's around this time

30:42

in the eighteen sixties through the early

30:44

twentieth century that public demand

30:47

for more theatrical manifestations

30:49

of spirit came into practice.

30:52

Other examples included full

30:54

body manifestations, something

30:56

that Kate was said to do for a wealthy banker

30:58

client who had lost his wife. Again,

31:01

this brings up simultaneous questions

31:03

of whether Kate was responding

31:06

to public pressure for larger

31:08

physical manifestations, or,

31:11

as spirits are often accused of,

31:13

if she was exploiting the grief

31:15

of a wealthy man by claiming that

31:17

she could physically make is dead

31:20

return who boy.

31:22

By the end of the Civil War, more Americans

31:25

were killed than in World Wars one and two

31:27

combined. President Lincoln

31:29

was assassinated, and the extremely

31:32

fraught period of reconstruction

31:34

in the US began. According

31:36

to Emma Hardinge, the war resulted in

31:39

two million additional Spiritualist

31:41

converts, a huge moment for the religion,

31:44

although there was no guarantee that the

31:46

movement would continue to align with the

31:49

times. It was around this time

31:51

that both of the Fox sisters parents

31:53

John and Margaret, passed away,

31:56

further fracturing the sister's relationship.

31:58

And the loss of her mother drove Kate

32:00

Fox to begin drinking to excess.

32:03

Her sister Maggie was already too sick

32:05

to help her, and eldest sister

32:07

Leah strategically kept her distance

32:10

interesting sidebar here. In an

32:12

attempt to intervene with Kate's alcoholism,

32:15

a doctor friend arranged to have her

32:17

be checked into the facility of one

32:20

doctor George Taylor, an

32:22

American who would go on to invent something called

32:24

the manipulator in eighteen sixty

32:27

nine, essentially a huge machine

32:29

designed to make women come

32:33

I'm not getting it's a big old vibrator. The

32:35

attitude towards the Victorian vagina

32:38

was both misogynists in the expected

32:40

way and kind of roundabout

32:42

progressive by mistake. In

32:44

a society known for litigating the bodies

32:47

of marginalized people, the post

32:49

Civil War era saw women like Kate,

32:51

those with some of the most privileged in

32:54

the nation, diagnosed with hysteria.

32:57

Now we're all familiar with that, but one

32:59

of the proposed cures for hysteria

33:03

was quote tellific massage

33:05

to hysterical paroxysm

33:08

coming u so deviant

33:11

behavior from the owners

33:13

of Victorian vaginas could

33:15

be cured by coming, although

33:17

of course the procedures didn't make it

33:19

sound as if this had anything to do with pleasure.

33:22

In a culture that famously assumed that

33:24

pussy shunned squirt without the guidance

33:26

of good dick, and was predicated

33:28

on the idea that women were emotionally

33:31

and intellectually inferior, Thus

33:34

hysteria, there were doctors

33:36

whose job that was to make

33:39

you come. That's just history.

33:41

Dr Rachel Maine's, a sex historian

33:43

and the author of the Technology of

33:45

Orgasm, said this of

33:47

the good doctor George Taylor. Dr

33:50

Taylor advised colleagues that women would

33:52

tend to want more treatment than they really needed.

33:54

They would overdo it if you let them. H

33:57

These scamps, these freaks,

33:59

they're coming all over town. Hide

34:01

your children. Kate Fox's

34:04

time with Dr Taylor was by all accounts,

34:07

really fun for her. He'd pioneered

34:09

something called the Swedish Movement Cure, which

34:12

encouraged regular vibrator

34:14

stuff along with exercise,

34:16

massage, and all vegetarian diet,

34:19

and this worked for her for some time, but

34:22

of course it couldn't cure her

34:24

financial issues or her

34:26

addiction. Kate would occasionally

34:28

disappear for weeks at a time to conduct

34:30

seances for the Nuvaux Reach of

34:32

New York City, often being bribed

34:35

with alcohol and going on weeklong

34:37

benders. Eventually, Dr

34:39

Taylor and his wife Sarah decided

34:41

to protect Kate by allowing her to stay

34:44

at their facility free of charge

34:46

in exchange for some quid pro

34:48

quo seances, once again

34:51

meaning that Kate Fox was paying her

34:53

rent by keeping a couple in

34:55

touch with their dead children. Harriet

34:57

Beetristowe, author of Tom's Happen,

35:00

was also a

35:03

patient of Dr Taylor's

35:05

and attended seances where Kate continued

35:07

to manifest more and more physical

35:10

manifestations disembodied

35:13

hands, twinkling lights, spirit

35:15

portraits, likely influenced by

35:17

early spirit photography.

35:20

Still struggling with addiction that Kate would

35:22

sometimes channel medium's messages

35:24

that seemed to be directed

35:26

at herself. Here's an example.

35:29

Now, go and rejoice, Katie, and

35:31

live. There are two paths,

35:33

one happiness and peace, one misery

35:36

and death. Choose the former,

35:39

and great will be your golden reward.

35:41

By one spirit,

35:43

had Kate informed the tailor's that it was time

35:46

for their medium and residence to go abroad

35:49

via a popular spirit that Kate

35:51

would channel named Benjamin

35:54

Franklin. I'm serious.

35:56

You might remember from a few episodes ago that I

35:58

was kind of jar when finding out

36:01

a present day Cassadega medium

36:03

considered JP Morgan

36:05

to be one of his spirit guides. But

36:07

there is weirdly precedent for that

36:09

kind of thing. American and English

36:12

spiritualists would often channel historical

36:14

figures like this, that is, ones

36:17

highly glorified in their culture at

36:19

the time who are deeply entrenched

36:22

in these colonial and imperialist

36:24

myths. It's yet another example

36:26

of the spiritualist movement being generally

36:29

progressive, but still majority

36:31

composed of middle class white Americans

36:33

who were frequently tone deaf and self

36:36

centered, a major reason that the

36:38

religion has not diversified much

36:40

today and why as well discussed

36:42

next week. Black and brown spiritualists

36:45

felt ostracized from the movement and

36:47

would go on to form their own churches

36:49

and customs. The tailors weren't thrilled

36:52

to see the prone to relapse in Kate

36:54

leave, but she was now in her mid

36:56

thirties and there wasn't much they could do.

36:59

She left for England in late eighteen seventy

37:01

one and was thrilled to see

37:03

that spiritualism had taken off in

37:05

England significantly. By

37:08

this time, England had produced a number

37:10

of legendary mediums since the religion

37:12

was brought to the country in the early eighteen

37:14

fifties. There was a deed Home,

37:17

who I've mentioned on Ghost Church before, who

37:19

was known as one of the least debunked

37:22

mediums of the time, although

37:24

skepticism ran rampant there as well.

37:26

My favorite example is Victorian

37:29

writer power couple Robert and Elizabeth

37:31

Barrett Browning went to one of Holmes

37:33

seances in England, ones, intriguing

37:36

Elizabeth but prompting Robert

37:38

to write a brutal takedown

37:40

poem called Mr Sludge

37:43

the medium, look at me, see

37:45

I kneel. The only time I swear I

37:47

ever cheated, Yes by the soul of

37:49

her who hears your sainted mother, sir.

37:52

All except this last accident was truth.

37:55

It's really long. It's like this Victorian dis

37:57

tract It's goodd

38:00

Holme was also notable for allegedly

38:02

introducing spiritualism to a Russian

38:04

woman named Helena Blovotsky in

38:07

the late eighteen fifties, who spent

38:09

a lot of time defending spiritualism for

38:11

years, but was off put by their fraud

38:13

allegations. Eventually, using

38:15

a number of ideas she'd learned via her

38:17

travels in Tibet, India

38:20

and all across the East, she brought

38:22

concepts like karma and reincarnation

38:25

into existing spiritualist rhetoric

38:27

and founded her own movement, Theosophy

38:30

in eighteen seventy five, a

38:32

movement that was also played by accusations

38:35

of fraud. Queen Victoria was

38:37

rumored to have either attended or maybe

38:39

even held spiritualist seances

38:41

after the death of her husband, Prince Albert

38:44

in eighteen sixty one, so it was

38:46

an even bigger boon to the English spiritualist

38:48

movement. When v Kate Fox

38:51

married an Englishman, now

38:53

thirty five years old, she met a widower

38:55

named Henry Dietrich Jenkin, who

38:58

didn't just believe in spiritualists, so

39:00

did his parents. She had two kids

39:02

with him, Ferdinand and England and

39:04

Henry Jr. While visiting her sisters in

39:06

New York, and her happy married

39:09

life and ability to continue practicing

39:11

her religion kept Kate on the wagon

39:13

for a long time, but as always,

39:16

things remained needlessly chaotic

39:19

in America. In eighteen seventy

39:21

two there were two spiritualist

39:23

adjacent failed presidential

39:25

campaigns. Longtime Fox

39:27

family friend Horace Greeley, who

39:30

Kate had spent the summer getting an education

39:32

from when she was just a kid, had

39:34

failed in his presidential bid against

39:37

Ulysses S. Grant and died shortly

39:39

after in a sanitarium. More

39:41

interesting way, many American spiritualists

39:44

were embarrassed when a medium named Victoria

39:47

Woodhull became the first

39:49

woman to ever campaign for the American

39:51

presidency. Her campaign is

39:53

considered to be pretty historic now

39:56

but was treated like a joke in its day.

39:59

Woodhull had as a women's rights

40:01

advocate for years. She had

40:03

been pro abolition, She had been

40:05

a pusher of the concept of free

40:07

love, which at this time only meant

40:09

the right to get married, divorced, or

40:11

have children without social restriction.

40:14

And then there were some eccentric things.

40:16

She listed Frederick Douglas as her

40:19

running mate, which I guess

40:21

she never told him about. All

40:23

this to say, the Spiritualists did not claim

40:25

her, and her public presence was considered

40:28

to be an embarrassment to the movement,

40:30

because sure, ghosts are real, but

40:32

a woman for president, I'm going to

40:34

be sick. I have to get on that big

40:37

scary vibrator again. By the mid eighteen

40:39

seventies, Kayton Maggie's relationship

40:41

with their older sister Leah hadn't improved

40:43

very much. Kate wrote in a letter

40:46

to fellow medium D. D. Home that

40:48

my sister, Mrs Underhill, who was more

40:50

than twenty three years older than myself,

40:53

was always jealous of me, and when my

40:55

blessed mother died, we were not on speaking

40:58

terms, but she was working

41:00

on forgiveness, explaining that

41:02

at times I find the shadows of her unkindness

41:05

lingering in my heart. I tried to

41:07

remember that she is a changed

41:09

woman and a good woman, while

41:21

the Fox has continued to split hairs.

41:23

Loosely organized spiritualist camps

41:25

began to pop up all over the country, including

41:28

a camp of hundreds of tents in Lake

41:30

Pleasant, Massachusetts, as

41:32

well as the Cassadega Lake Free

41:34

Association in upstate New York

41:37

in eighteen seventy nine. Don't

41:39

be confused, this is not the same

41:41

Cassadega that I visited this year

41:43

in Florida. This is a sister camp

41:46

that was later named lily Dale in

41:48

nineteen oh six. Lily Dale

41:50

is still considered to be the most influential

41:53

spiritualist camp in the country, spanning

41:56

over eighty acres and briefly

41:58

being the site where the Fox is. His cabin

42:00

was relocated. Of course,

42:03

like all notable spiritualist buildings, it

42:05

burned down under mysterious circumstances.

42:08

In Kate's husband

42:10

died after they had a decade

42:12

of a happy marriage and two kids,

42:15

and Kate almost immediately falls

42:17

off the wagon and begins drinking again.

42:20

She traveled to Russia briefly after

42:22

being invited by a bureaucrat, and

42:24

is said to have held seances for the royal

42:26

family, but those times didn't last

42:29

very Long eight four brought

42:31

another round of prominent mediums

42:33

down with a study called the Seabird

42:36

Commission. It was an academic

42:38

study funded with money left behind

42:40

by spiritualist Henry Siebert

42:42

to confirm the phenomena of the religion

42:44

he dedicated his life too. Conducted

42:47

at the University of Pennsylvania. Maggie

42:49

met with them, and while her mediumship

42:52

wasn't disproven, that was

42:54

once again cast on how the

42:56

Fox spirit rappings were made,

42:59

as well as on other physical phenomena

43:01

like spirit photography and automatic

43:03

writing. The sisters were thrown

43:05

into conflict again when Leah

43:08

published her heavily editorialized

43:10

memoirs called The Missing Link

43:12

in Modern Spiritualism in five,

43:16

which Maggie and Kate did not like,

43:18

particularly because they were struggling

43:21

financially and with alcohol

43:23

as their older sister lived this comfortable,

43:26

wealthy life. In Everything

43:30

comes crashing down that

43:32

may, Kate Fox was arrested

43:35

and held for three hundred dollars in

43:37

the Harlem Police court on child

43:39

neglect charges. When the police

43:41

showed up, the boys were fined and healthy,

43:43

but Kate was in fact drunk,

43:46

and the boys, who were fourteen and twelve,

43:49

were sent to a juvenile asylum.

43:52

Once released, Kate was devastated

43:55

and embarrassed, admitting

43:57

to having quote intemperate

43:59

habits end quote, but strongly

44:02

denied that this had affected her parenting

44:04

and the impact that this arrest had extended

44:06

beyond the personal. For other prominent

44:09

spiritualists, Kate's arrest was an

44:11

embarrassment that further estranged

44:13

the religion's creators from

44:15

the religion itself. Maggie

44:18

was able to get her nephews out of the juvenile

44:20

asylum by sending a cable

44:23

posing as Kate's brother in law, Edward

44:25

Jenkin, reuniting Kate with the

44:27

boys, but that was only the beginning.

44:30

At this point, Maggie and Kate Fox

44:32

had been synonymous with spiritualism

44:35

for forty years, beginning

44:37

when they were about the same age as Kate's

44:39

sons. Spiritualism

44:41

had changed their lives completely,

44:43

for better and for worse. They

44:45

had become some of the most prominent

44:47

women serving as religious figures

44:49

in the world, but had become so

44:51

at the expense of their privacy,

44:54

their youth, and the majority of

44:56

their personal relationships. They

44:58

were predisposed to alcohol is m via

45:00

their dad, but these issues were

45:02

exacerbated by the stress and pressure

45:05

of constant investigations

45:07

and their status at different times in life

45:10

as unmarried or widowed women definitely

45:12

did not help. By this time,

45:15

Maggie had returned to occasionally

45:17

conducting seances for financial

45:19

purposes, while maintaining that

45:21

she was technically a Catholic okay

45:24

Messi. But forty years on,

45:26

the world still wondered did

45:29

they really believe in what

45:31

they had spent their lives doing. Maggie

45:34

Fox published an answer via

45:37

a column in the New York Heralds called

45:39

The Curse of Spiritualism,

45:41

in which she said that it was all

45:43

a lie. She explained that

45:46

she and Kate had been reassured by Leah

45:48

as children that their fraudulence was

45:50

okay and in service of something

45:52

greater, that spirit communication

45:55

was real, and that she had proved it

45:57

by having spirit rappings that Leah

45:59

her self produced assure her

46:01

younger sisters that they were doing the right

46:04

thing. Her Maggie Leah

46:06

had exploited a prank that they'd

46:08

played as board kids, convinced

46:11

them it was real, and spun it out

46:13

into a religion that had made her rich

46:15

and respected, while her kid's sisters

46:18

remained deceived and increasingly

46:20

destitute. Maggie takes pot

46:22

shots a lot of people in this column,

46:25

particularly Leah, but also

46:27

the general public who were enthusiastic

46:29

about spiritualism. She indicates

46:32

that she felt the public pressured

46:34

mediums into fraudulence with

46:36

increasingly ridiculous demands.

46:39

From her column, spiritualism is a

46:41

curse. God has set his seal against

46:44

it. I call it a curse for the vilest

46:46

miscreants make use of it to cloak their

46:48

evil doings. Fanatics ignore

46:51

the wrappings, which is the only part of the

46:53

phenomena that is worthy of notice, and

46:55

rushed madly after the glaring humbugs

46:57

that flood New York of

47:00

Lellah. Maggie indicated that she felt

47:02

it was Leah who had gotten Kate

47:04

arrested in the first place. When

47:07

she was interviewed in a follow up by The Tribune

47:09

in September, she

47:12

went in, we

47:14

were but innocent, little children. What

47:16

did we know? We get to know

47:18

too much. Our sister used us in

47:20

her exhibitions, and we made money

47:22

for her. Now she turns upon us because

47:24

she's the wife of a rich man, and she opposes

47:27

us both wherever she can. Oh,

47:29

I am after her. You can kill sometimes

47:31

without using weapons, you know. When

47:34

asked how the Foxes had produced the wrappings

47:36

all these years, Maggie promised

47:38

she would show the world at an upcoming lecture.

47:41

And what gets me the most out of this whole story

47:44

is Maggie saying that she never

47:46

believed that her older sister was lying

47:48

to her about spirit communication

47:50

being real until her own husband

47:53

died and never came back to talk

47:55

to her. Maggie continues,

47:57

why I have explored the unknown

48:00

as far as human will can. I

48:02

have gone to the dead so that I might get from

48:04

them some little token. Nothing

48:06

came of it, nothing nothing.

48:10

Kate fully supported Maggie, saying

48:12

that the majority of Leah's book was fiction,

48:15

and at a public showing in October,

48:19

Maggie showed the world how she and

48:21

Kate had been producing the wrappings

48:23

all these years, confirming

48:26

a lot of speculation from the

48:28

past four decades. She says,

48:30

at night, when we went to bed, we used to tie

48:32

an apple on a string and move the string

48:34

up and down, causing the apple to bump

48:37

on the floor. Or we would drop the apple

48:39

on the floor, making a strange noise. Every

48:41

time it would rebound. As people

48:43

have been speculating since the early eighteen

48:45

fifties. Maggie said the raps were

48:47

produced with their knuckles and joints,

48:50

fingers toes. Knees.

48:54

Oh my god, that's so cruel.

48:57

These women's knees were just destroy

49:00

roy. They were for sure double jointed,

49:02

but over time developed incredible

49:05

control over the motions of

49:07

their bodies. It's pretty fascinating

49:10

and kind of grotesque to think about. It's

49:12

not like athletic, but that kind

49:14

of mastery of your own tiny

49:17

bodily movements is just wild.

49:20

Uh. Maggie said that no

49:22

one ever caught on or mistrusted them when

49:24

spiritualism began, because they

49:26

were just kids, and that they were led

49:28

on by my sister intentionally and

49:31

by my mother unintentionally. She

49:33

called several physicians to the stage and

49:35

showed them how she did it. She moved

49:37

around her joints, and just as

49:39

always, the spirit raps sounded

49:43

around the auditorium.

49:45

The news called it the death blow

49:48

to spiritualism. Here were the two

49:50

girls, now women who had started

49:52

everything, publicly stating

49:54

that it had been a lie, and they regretted

49:56

it. All Spiritualism should

49:58

have ended right there and then. But

50:01

that's not really how believing in something

50:03

works is it? By this time,

50:06

spiritualism was in some ways

50:09

too big to fail. In addition

50:11

to large followings in the US

50:13

and Europe, a movement called

50:16

a Spiritismo, which will discuss

50:18

next week, had combined with other

50:20

spiritual traditions of enslaved

50:22

African people in Brazil, Cuba,

50:25

and Puerto Rico, to name a few. So

50:28

spiritualists did what you might expect,

50:31

once again, discredit and smear

50:33

the Fox Sisters by any means necessary.

50:36

Maggie was accused of disclaiming spirit

50:39

for financial reasons, of being

50:41

abandoned by spirit by lack of

50:43

faith, that she wasn't even relevant enough

50:45

to the movement for her opinion to matter. That

50:48

Kate was just falling into line with

50:50

her lie, just as she had fallen into

50:52

line with Leah all those years. Prominent

50:55

spiritualists turned on them as

50:57

they continued to tour the j K

50:59

spit Ritualism Is Fake lecture series.

51:02

They stuck by this for a good year.

51:04

But here's the part that's wildest of all.

51:07

A year later they took it

51:09

back. Maggie

51:11

apologized forever having said that

51:14

spiritualism was a lie, now

51:16

saying that quote would to God

51:18

that I could undo the injustice I did the

51:20

cause of spiritualism. She said

51:22

the Catholics had made her do it, and certainly

51:25

not that the wealthy spiritualists had

51:27

pressured her to recount her statements.

51:30

Maggie implied that she would do another

51:32

lecture tour the j

51:35

K. The JK spiritualism is

51:37

fake lecture tour is fake lecture

51:40

tour. It didn't work. Leah

51:43

passed away peacefully at home in eight

51:45

nine and her late seventies, the child

51:48

abuse accusations never really affecting

51:50

her, and in fact, the backlash

51:52

against her younger sisters only elevated

51:55

Leah's status among long time spiritualists.

51:58

Kate redacted all of her denied aisles

52:00

of her religion as well, and once

52:02

again started doing sciences for the

52:04

Vibrator family the Tailors, but

52:06

would still disappear on drinking binges

52:08

before passing away mid binge

52:11

at only fifty five in July.

52:15

Shortly before she died, she channeled the

52:17

spirit of Benjamin Franklin for the Tailor's

52:20

one last time, saying there

52:22

will be no loss. God bless

52:24

you now and forever. Maggie

52:27

was poor and living at a friend's apartment when she

52:29

grew sick in eight, dying

52:31

in her sleep at fifty nine. There

52:34

was no money left, but a friend arranged

52:36

for Maggie and Cake to be buried beside

52:38

each other. And

52:41

that's the story of the Fox sisters. They

52:44

are tough cultural figures

52:47

to parse. On one hand,

52:50

I'll be honest, Leah Fox feels like a

52:52

pretty standard girl boss of her

52:54

era, a single mom in her

52:57

thirties, barred from most lines

52:59

of work and certainly most lines of

53:01

power. She was a single woman who

53:03

couldn't even vote. When her little sisters

53:06

stumbled onto this local phenomenon,

53:08

she saw an opportunity and exploited

53:11

it to create space for herself that didn't

53:13

exist. But Maggie and Kate Fox,

53:16

that's a little harder. They were kids,

53:19

and it's much harder to understand what they

53:21

believed and what they didn't and

53:23

for how long. To this day,

53:25

people generally cast Maggie and Kate

53:28

as knowing that their seances were a

53:30

fraud the whole time. Here's a drunk

53:32

history clip to that effect. Spiritualism

53:35

has taken off of that point. And

53:37

so basically, when Maggie Fox

53:39

is done, made her

53:41

and her sister's irrelevant. So

53:43

after Maggie realizes that

53:46

her life is nothing when she's not a meeting

53:48

him, she just drank a bunch of boost

53:50

as she dined. But I

53:52

I don't know. I do believe that they were playing

53:55

a prank on their parents that got way blown

53:57

out of proportion. But I also

53:59

believe that if you're much older sister

54:01

tells you something is true when you're a child,

54:05

you will probably believe it. Faith

54:07

has skull fucked so many people, often

54:10

because of what they internalized as true

54:12

when they're very young. And if I were

54:14

an eleven year old told that not only

54:16

did a prank I pulled on April

54:18

Fool's Day have accidental

54:21

religious significance, but that that significance

54:24

made me a prophet that was going

54:26

to help my family, I

54:28

don't know. Every what would you do. I

54:30

don't know what I'd do. And however far

54:32

down the line, when you learn that things are

54:35

not as you've been told, whenever that is,

54:37

and it seems like Maggie and Kate had those

54:39

moments throughout their lives. By

54:42

that point, this deceit had determined

54:44

every area of their life and

54:47

stood to rob people of the comfort

54:49

that they had previously felt morally

54:51

confident in giving. If Maggie

54:53

or Kate truly knew that they were fraudulent,

54:56

that's up for criticism, and it should be in

54:58

particular. I don't think that any grieving

55:01

parents should be misled. But

55:03

there's too much gray area from me here. I'm

55:05

a grieving person doing way too much of

55:07

this ship right now. I'm making a wholes show

55:10

about shades of gray and skepticism

55:12

as it pertains to spiritualism. But

55:14

I still went to a medium last week, and

55:16

I don't know if I went for the truth, but

55:19

I do know that I went for comfort and

55:21

I got that. And if that medium

55:23

has a crisis of self three weeks

55:25

from now and contacts me and says

55:28

it was all a hoax, I would say

55:30

I still got what I paid for. But

55:32

I don't know. Everyone's different. Maggie

55:35

and Kate Fox were not perfect

55:37

baby angel religious profits that

55:40

they were often framed as, But I think

55:42

they're worth empathizing with. Well,

55:44

not so much on THEA for me. She lived till eighty

55:47

off their backs. As far as I'm concerned,

55:49

who cares faith is fucked

55:51

up when you're a kid and being lifted as

55:53

a prophet while propping up your older sister's

55:56

fraud probably doesn't help.

56:00

Over forty five years after two

56:02

sisters had heard wrappings in Hydesville,

56:04

the Fox Sisters were gone, but

56:07

spiritualism was just getting

56:09

started. And just a year after that,

56:11

the Cassadega Lake Free Association

56:14

decided it was time to open up a new

56:16

camp that would stay open year round

56:19

in central Florida. Speaking

56:21

of which, let's

56:23

see how the good referend Dr Lewis lands

56:25

this plane by September

56:28

this year. Not think you're in a relationship.

56:30

I think you could be in a very extremely powerful

56:32

friendship. Yeah, he's still telling

56:34

me that he doesn't think I'll ever be in love my

56:37

entire life. But it's fine.

56:39

We finish our session and I pay him

56:41

forty bucks for forty five minutes. And

56:44

for those not plugged into the going rate

56:46

for mediumship, this is low,

56:49

about half of what the other Cassadega

56:51

medium might visit charges. That's

56:53

another way that Reverend Dr Lewis is

56:55

old school. Past generations

56:57

of Cassadega mediums never won

57:00

it to charge for their work at all, Implying

57:02

to do so would be to cheapen their gifts

57:05

and make spiritualism less generally

57:07

accessible. Today's mediums

57:09

do charge different rates and

57:12

a showing of respect for each other's labor,

57:14

although it still is a controversial issue. As

57:17

I'm heading out, I asked the Reverend doctor

57:19

what the rest of his day is like, and he tells

57:21

me he has a session coming up this afternoon

57:24

he needs to get ready for. It's a family

57:26

of middle aged siblings who are looking

57:28

for buried treasure that a dead father

57:30

said might be buried somewhere

57:33

in their house. Delightful.

57:36

So no of the three readings

57:38

I have at Cassadega, two

57:40

of which from long time certified

57:43

mediums, nothing completely blew

57:45

me away. And that's fine for people

57:47

who come here. That's a calculated risk you take.

57:49

I think I saw them out

57:51

and not the other way around. Where

57:53

the situation can get predatory is

57:56

when mediums and psychics work

57:58

with the police, for example, an

58:00

issue we'll talk about in a future episode.

58:02

That's a hard line. If a medium is

58:04

seeking you to give false affirmative

58:07

hope, run the other way.

58:10

After I leave my reading with Reverend Dr Lewis,

58:12

I walked past the library, around the corner,

58:15

past the shop where they charged ninety bucks to talk

58:17

to you behind a thin sheet and back

58:19

to my hotel room where there's no hot water.

58:22

It's funny because I've walked around boast

58:24

of the camp at this point, around the

58:26

parks, the ferry trail, the huge Floridian

58:28

forest where there's a few marked bamboo

58:30

poles that memorialize where either a

58:33

hotel or a sanitarium burned down,

58:35

depending on who you ask, And I've

58:37

definitely been to the gas station. But

58:39

one element of the camp always stands

58:41

out, something that's visually and

58:43

verbally referenced all the time

58:46

because it is a critical part of

58:48

the founding myth of Cassadega,

58:50

and that is the Indigenous

58:52

spirit Guide. But for all the

58:55

talk of respecting and referencing

58:57

Indigenous culture, this is not

58:59

a history that's available in Cassadega

59:02

any more than the tragic side

59:04

of the Fox Sister story is one

59:06

that's ever referenced. So next

59:08

week we're going to tackle the next spiritualist

59:11

myth, the tangled colonial Mess,

59:13

and we'll take a detour to the world

59:16

of espiritismo. All that and

59:18

more on next week's post

59:20

Church. Ghost

59:23

Church is a cool Zone Media production, created,

59:25

written and hosted by me Jamie

59:27

Loftus. The show is produced by Sophie

59:30

Lichtman, edited by Ian Johnson.

59:32

Our theme song is by Speedy Ortiz,

59:35

That's Sadie Duplead, Andy Loholt,

59:37

AUDREYSI Whiteside and Joey Dubeck.

59:40

Music is by Zoe Bade.

59:43

Special thanks to guest voices this week

59:45

Ian Johnson, Sophie Lichtman, Sharene,

59:48

Lonnie Units and Caitlin Drante