Selects: How Spiritualism Works

Summary

Stuff You Should Know – Selects: How Spiritualism Works

Hosts: Josh Clark & Chuck Bryant
Date: March 7, 2026 (original recording 2020)
Podcast: iHeartPodcasts

---

Episode Overview

In this “Selects” episode, Josh and Chuck revisit their deep dive into the history, mechanics, and social currents surrounding the rise of Spiritualism—the belief that the spirits of the dead can and do communicate with the living, most often through mediums. The show traces the origins of the movement in 19th-century America, the major players (from the Fox Sisters to Harry Houdini), the pseudoscientific methods employed, and the movement’s impact—both good and bad—on society. The conversation is rich with humorous asides and cultural context, keeping a playful and skeptical tone throughout.

---

Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: What is Spiritualism?

• [07:02] Josh contextualizes spiritualism as something taken for granted today, permeating pop culture (crystal balls, Ouija boards, tarot cards), but points out that there was a very specific moment in history when it became a movement—a major social and religious force.
• [08:36] Chuck distinguishes between ancient ghost stories and Spiritualism the movement—a phenomenon that turned into both a belief system and (for many) a money-making “scam” that preyed on the grief-stricken.

2. Key Conditions for Spiritualism’s Rise

• Frontier Mentality ([11:23])
  • Josh: “The people who are living out there on the frontier, they're living on the edge of civilization... forced, just by virtue of having to survive under these weird conditions outside of culture and civilization in the European sense, to abandon that culture and basically make it up as they went along and recreate a new culture from the frontier.”
• Religious Fervor & Experimentation ([12:47])
  • Chuck: “No big religious authorities in the area. They had no structured hierarchy of religion... again, they could just make up stuff. And... a lot of religions sprang out from this region during that time."
• Science, Technology, and the Unseen ([15:18])
  • The era’s discovery of invisible phenomena (electromagnetism, etc.) made people more open to unseen worlds. Josh notes: “There was a lot more willingness among people who were scientifically minded to say, well, maybe this is a good explanation of that.”

3. The Birth of Modern Spiritualism: The Fox Sisters

• [20:14] The movement’s “zero day” is traced to March 31, 1848, with the Fox family in Hydesville, NY.
• Josh discusses how the sisters (especially under older sister Leah’s management) held seances and developed “spirit rapping” (really toe-knuckle thumping on hidden wooden stools). The act went global and lasted decades.
• [26:10] Maggie Fox later confessed to the ruse—but by then, the spiritualist movement was unstoppable.

Notable quote:

• “It was basically a prank by a couple of teenage girls that got way out of hand really fast.” – Josh (24:14)

4. How Spiritualists Worked Their Craft

• Channeling / Trance Mediums ([29:58])
  • Mediums would dramatically “become” the spirit through voice and mannerisms (like famed Cora Scott).
• Automatic Writing ([32:32])
  • Spirits supposedly took over the medium’s hand.
  • Pearl Curran is cited for thousands of works channeled from "Patience Worth."
• Direct Voice ([33:49])
  • The spirit "speaks directly," often thanks to a hidden assistant or ventriloquism (Leslie Flint).
• Table Turning ([36:03])
  • Seance members place hands on a table that “moves”—often via hidden devices, trickery, or the ideomotor effect.
• Ectoplasmic Manifestations ([37:31])
  • “Ectoplasm” was faked using hidden props, sometimes bizarrely stored in body cavities.
  • Remark: “Some of the pictures that you see online… are hysterical and frightening all at the same time.” – Chuck
• Levitation & Spirit Photography ([39:12], [41:15])
  • Simple illusions, double exposures, and party tricks explained in rich detail.

5. The Civil War, World War I, and the Grief Market

• [47:25] The Civil War created a vast new audience of bereaved seeking solace—turning an entertainment into a personal business.
• [48:43] The pattern repeated after WWI.
• The hosts stress the ethical gray zone of profiting from grief, with Chuck lamenting: “When you are taking people's money who have lost loved ones in battle, then that's when it gets kind of really ugly, if you ask me.” ([48:43])

6. Decline and Endurance of Spiritualism

• As mediums became greedier and more outrageous, public belief sputtered; scientific debunkings took a heavy toll ([50:47]).
• However, select communities and individuals (e.g., Dan Aykroyd) still practice spiritualism as a religion.

7. The Skeptics vs. True Believers

• The episode highlights “appeal to (false) authority” ([52:44]) with scientists and celebrities lending undue credence to mediums.
• Legendary top-heavy believer: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (of Sherlock Holmes)—staunch defender of spiritualism.
• Legendary skeptic: Harry Houdini—magician who made it his mission to expose spiritualist frauds, incorporating debunking into his act ([57:09]).

Notable exchange:

• “They [mediums] were stealing our tricks!” – Josh, on why magicians fought back ([59:14])

8. Women and Spiritualism: A Path to Agency

• Most 19th-century mediums were women, aided logistically by their long dresses (hiding devices) and by social reluctance to search them closely ([60:40]).
• Chuck: “It was no coincidence that sometimes the voice from the other side would champion... progressive views... If you were a woman and you were a spiritualist, it would be very easy to say, you know, they're saying that women should have more rights... and that kind of ended up happening in some ways.”
• The movement often intersected with abolitionism, women’s rights, and other social causes ([62:07]).

---

Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes

• On the Fox Sisters’ Confession:
  “They did this for 40 years. They made a living around the world doing that and created a new religion from it.” – Josh ([26:10])

• Fraud/Skepticism:
  “If you could get a top heavy to basically say like, I can't explain it, science can't explain it, that would go a very long way to bolstering your career, you know?” – Josh ([54:17])

• On Women Mediums Influencing Social Change:
  "Not only that... I imagine in a lot of cases people made real life decisions based on things that would happen in these seances." – Chuck ([49:53])

• Pop culture asides:
  The hosts riff on ghost rapping, ‘The Others’ (Nicole Kidman), and Joyce Carol Oates’s seance story "Nightside" ([64:01]).

---

Timestamps of Key Segments

• Intro and context – [02:56]
• Defining Spiritualism & rise conditions – [07:02] to [18:00]
• The Fox Sisters’ story – [20:14] to [28:12]
• Medium techniques and spectacle – [29:58] to [44:00]
• Civil War & social context – [45:43] to [50:47]
• Skeptics, Science, and Showmanship – [52:07] to [59:28]
• Women, agency, and progressive reforms – [60:40] to [64:46]
• Closing recs & final thoughts – [64:46] to end

---

Final Thoughts

This episode provides an accessible, wry, and culturally insightful look at how Spiritualism exploded from a fringe curiosity to a massive social movement, delivered in Josh and Chuck’s trademark blend of humor and skepticism. Listeners gain historical context, understand the millieu that enabled spiritualism, and see how its echoes persist in modern skepticism and paranormal culture.

---

Recommended for:

• Anyone curious about the roots of séances, mediums, and the American religious landscape
• Listeners interested in the social history of skepticism
• Fans of cultural and historical podcast storytelling

---

Notable References

• [14:42] – John Harvey Kellogg and the breakfast/health reform connection
• [32:32] – Pearl Curran and Patience Worth
• [54:17] – “Top heavy” scientists (from "Revelations of a Spirit Medium")
• [57:09] – Harry Houdini’s crusade against spiritualist frauds
• [64:01] – Joyce Carol Oates's "Nightside" (recommended as a chilling short story on spiritualism)

---

For further exploration:

• "The Others" (film, Nicole Kidman)
• Joyce Carol Oates, “Nightside” (short story)
• Lily Dale, NY—a modern spiritualist community ([65:04])

---

If you’re fascinated by how a bizarre Victorian fad still lingers in pop culture—and how a blend of science, grief, and show business collided—this is an essential listen.

Transcript

[Narrator/Announcer]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Josh Clark]

Guaranteed human.

[Chuck Bryant]

If you were to try two zero sugar colas with their labels removed and make the decision based on taste alone, do you know which one you'd choose?

[Josh Clark]

Well, last year, Pepsi put that to the test for tens of thousands of people across the country in a revival of the iconic Pepsi Challenge. And the results were clear. 66% of people preferred the taste of Pepsi Zero Sugar over Coke Zero Sugar. That's the idea behind the Pepsi paradox, that when labels and bias disappear, people prefer the taste of Pepsi Zero sugar.

[Chuck Bryant]

It really makes you wonder, are you choosing the zero sugar cola that you actually prefer or are you settling for the label that you think you prefer?

[Josh Clark]

Go out and try Pepsi Zero sugar today. You deserve taste. You deserve Pepsi. Hey, everybody, there's a new film called Project Hail Mary that you're going to want to see. It follows a science teacher, Rylan Grace, played by Ryan Gosling, who wakes up alone on a spaceship light years from Earth with no no memory of who he is or how he got there. As his memory slowly returns, he realizes he's actually on a last ditch mission to solve the mystery of a substance that's causing the sun to die. So, no pressure. Calling on his scientific knowledge and unorthodox ideas, Rylan has to figure out how to save Earth. It's a smart, high stakes story about science, survival, and most importantly, hope and connection in the face of impossible odds. So don't miss it on the big screen. See Project Hail Mary only in theaters and IMAX March 20th. Get your tickets now.

[Chuck Bryant]

When you think about protecting what matters, it's usually your family, your future, or the stability you've worked a lifetime to build. Right? That's why Protective is here. They're on a mission to help more people achieve the sense of protection and financial security they deserve. Trusted by 32 million people, protective is by your side with life insurance, retirement, employee benefit and asset protection solutions. If you're wondering what protecting your future could look like, check out protective.com to learn more. For more information and important disclosures, please visit protective.com hey, guys, it's me, your old pal, Josh.

[Josh Clark]

And for this week's Select, I've chosen our 2020 episode on spiritualism, which, as you might be able to tell from the first couple minutes, was recorded during the height of the COVID pandemic. That's not why I chose this one. I chose it because it's been coming up a lot lately for some reason in episode after episode, which I've taken as a sign to choose this as a select, but it's also kind of made me think about all of the back and forth I've gone through in my life. Is there an afterlife? Is there not an afterlife? Who knows? That's where I'm at right now. Who knows? So maybe listen to this episode about the spiritualism movement and see what you think about the whole thing. Enjoy.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartradio.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there. Somewhere in the heart of darkness.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm in the office, dude.

[Josh Clark]

Where I hear your voice, Chuck, but I can't see you.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, I don't know why people need to know the behind the scenes things, but home recording provides some challenges, and I was getting pretty frustrated, so I was like, you know what? I'm gonna go to the studio because I know it'll sound great in here.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it does.

[Chuck Bryant]

And I know there won't be dogs and children and everyone should feel good about it because I have not seen another human being in the building.

[Josh Clark]

Didn't a security guard try to run you off the road when you were parking?

[Chuck Bryant]

He didn't try. He stopped me literally in the parking lot and was like, what are you doing here? I was like, I'm going to my job. And he said, okay.

[Josh Clark]

He said, stay home, save lives.

[Chuck Bryant]

But before we left, I mean, apparently since I left, they have these. There's a bottle of microphone sanitizer.

[Josh Clark]

Whoa.

[Chuck Bryant]

There are headphones sanitized or not sanitized, but just disposable headphone covers.

[Josh Clark]

Sweet.

[Chuck Bryant]

And I feel more safe here than I do at my house.

[Josh Clark]

What? Microphone sanitizer. That sounds really made up.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's. Go ahead and buzzmark it. No, I won't, because it smells bad, and I didn't want to buzzmark it and then say it smells bad. It's apple flavor.

[Josh Clark]

Whoa.

[Chuck Bryant]

Which would make Emily just, like, turn over in her bed.

[Josh Clark]

It's a good Jolly Rancher flavor. Not the best scent, though.

[Chuck Bryant]

I hate it when they add scent to stuff that doesn't need scent.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, agreed.

[Chuck Bryant]

Try finding an unscented garbage bag these days.

[Josh Clark]

Is it tough to.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, man. Every single one of them. I even got some that said unscented, and it still smells like something you've missed.

[Josh Clark]

That in parentheses underneath it says, mostly 99% unscented.

[Chuck Bryant]

We can't help ourselves 1% rosemary.

[Josh Clark]

Well, I don't have my over the ear headphones right now. I just have Earbuds. So I'm wearing one of Yumi's long scarves wrapped around my head twice to keep from your audio bleeding onto the track through my microphone.

[Chuck Bryant]

You either look like Lawrence of Arabia or like you just wandered in with a head injury.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I had to. It kept slipping off with the Lawrence of Arabia look, so I had to do it the other way around. So now it looks like I have a 19th century toothache.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, man. Send me another picture.

[Josh Clark]

It's not very comfortable. My Adam's apple is being pressed toward the back of my throat right now.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. What was the deal with that whole toothache thing? Like, was there ice in there or something? Or was it just, like. Just tied their chin shut?

[Josh Clark]

And it'll help knowing that era there were probably some sort of, like, razor blade and a heroin concoction that would just scrape the area where the tooth was and inject you with dope to keep you from complaining.

[Chuck Bryant]

Dr. Payne's new chin wrap now with more leeches.

[Josh Clark]

Right from the makers of microphone sanitizer.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, let's get into this. We've already been goofing around for too long. Fine. Let's just finish.

[Josh Clark]

Fine.

[Chuck Bryant]

Let's get this over with.

[Josh Clark]

Let's get serious and talk about spiritualism, shall we?

[Chuck Bryant]

This is a great, great job by Grabster. Great idea by you. And it'll be a great episode.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, Grabster. We asked him to help us out with this. So he put together a world class article for us. And when we asked him, we said, hey, how about spiritualism? He goes, my brother wrote his dissertation on that. Should be simple.

[Chuck Bryant]

He just forwarded us that.

[Josh Clark]

He didn't even, like, erase his brother's first name. He just did a strike through and wrote Ed after it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Easy money.

[Josh Clark]

So it is like a really, really interesting phenomenon. Something I think we kind of take for granted because it pops up everywhere in our world in pop culture. I mean, it's just a part of everything from crystal balls to seances to Ouija boards to tarot cards. All of this stuff. Movies. Yeah, As a matter of fact, I ran across. So you know Dan aykroyd's huge into UFOs, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

I did know that, actually.

[Josh Clark]

He's also enormous into spirits and ghosts. It's actually one of the impetuses. Yeah, I think so. Of him writing Ghostbusters. He's actually a fourth generation spiritualist with a capital S. Like the church. Spiritualism. He was raised that way. His father, grandfather, and great grandfather were all spiritualists. And that's how he was raised as well. So it does. This kind of. It's so permeated our culture. It's weird to think of a time when it wasn't there, but there actually was this period starting in. Right about in the middle of the 19th century, going well into the 20th century, where there was a movement that basically said, the spirit world is there, it exists. When you die, your personality survives. And some people actually have a talent for communicating with. With the spirits in the spirit world. And we're going to start doing that. And that was spiritualism, the spiritualist movement.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And Ed pointed out, which we should as well, that ghosts and things like that and ghost stories, they had been around since. People have been around. Everyone since the dawn of humankind has tried to figure out what happens after you die. Do people visit, do they take on other forms or whatever? So that's different than what we're talking about. What we're talking about is spiritualism in that it became a big scam and way to get money out of people who are in pain from a friend's or loved one's death.

[Josh Clark]

Sadly. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. But there is like a thread through there where this same era, the same period, and this belief in communicating with the spirit and the idea that you could go to a seance and talk to your dead loved one or whatever, it produced this other group of people who said, yes, there are tons of fraudsters and hucksters out there who are taking advantage of this, but there's also this real. There's the real version of. Of it actually does exist, and we're going to apply this newfangled thing called science to investigate it. And that produced that era of people like Charles Fort or Harry Price, who visited the Borley Rectory, the most haunted place in England, or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. These guys I know, I'm trying out a new version. I like it. These guys, though, they believed in this stuff and the possibility of it, and they also believed in the possibility of applying science to it. And even of science couldn't explain it. It didn't mean that it didn't exist. And then there was another group who were what we would recognize today as like pure skeptics, like the James Randis of the day, who all followed in the footsteps of Harry Houdini, as we'll see, who kind of created this. So you had hucksters, believers who were skeptical, and genuine, pure skeptics who believed none of it was correct.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And what I mentioned before, like, all the previous attempts to do stuff like this pre mid-1800s, in largely the northeast United States, it was more religious, like prophets and shaman and stuff like that. Spiritualism was the birth of the Madame Cleos of the world. Ed refers to it as a democratization, and that's one way to look at it. But it was the idea that, hey, if you are chosen and you are special, it's not like you have to be some religious leader. You can just be a regular person with the gift.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly, yeah. Which was a huge sea change. And there are basically a few things that kind of came together for this mentality, this. This fertile kind of imagination of this pocket of America and western New York where all of this began to kind of take shape. And one of those things was the frontier, this frontier mentality. The historian Frederick Jackson Turner called. Called it the significance of the frontier in American history. And he basically said, man, the people who are living out there on the frontier, they're living on the edge of civilization, the leading edge. Right, right. Beyond that, what they're coming up against. And this is highly debatable because part of what they were coming up against was Native America. It just wasn't a civilization in the form that any European had ever encountered before. But the idea was that the people who were living on the frontier and expanding westward were basically being forced, just by virtue of having to survive under these weird conditions outside of culture and civilization in the European sense, that they were having to abandon that culture and basically make it up as they went along and recreate a new culture from the frontier. And that. That just kind of threw the rules out the window.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. This is one of my favorite things when we do topics that when you can look back at a movement and point to factors that at any other time in history, if just one of these might not have taken, you know, might not have influenced it, then it might not have happened at all. There's something about that that I've always really loved. And this is a perfect example. The frontier life is one. Religious fervor is another. And specifically in New York in the 1800s, people were really caught up on this religious fervor. And it kind of went from town to town. And there was no big religious authorities in the area. They were out on the frontier. They had no structured hierarchy of religion. And so, again, they could just make up stuff. And I'm not saying that's not tied to this next sentence, because I don't want to turn anyone off, but a lot of religions sprang out from this region during that time, like Millerism and Mormonism and Quakers and Shakers kind of had a resurgence, basically a shot in the arm just because of this fervor going on at the time.

[Josh Clark]

And I couldn't quite put where Miller is and why it seems so familiar. And then I remember that that was the woman who gave birth eventually to the Seventh Day Adventist and that popped up in the Kellogg episode, remember?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Millerism was where it all started. But that was. And that really kind of indicates. I love it when things, just things we've talked about before, like, have even more context from something else. But that just kind of goes to show you, like, this is the kind of place where somebody could be like, I'm in contact with the spirits or Jesus came and hung out with me or whatever. And this is what I know and what I've been told. So let's start a religion based on it. And not even necessarily just religions, but also like social movements, like utopian societies where.

[Chuck Bryant]

And chew your food 20 times so you'll poopies here.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. Or you know, women have equal rights as men, which is just completely radical. Or how about 50 of us live together and just by the fact that we all live together, we're married according to this utopian society. Just whatever you wanted to do, you kind of could. Because the frontier threw the rules out the window. Or at the very least cultural traditions that most people are raised into. When that's not there, people make up their own.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. And the third big factor that you mentioned was, or we haven't talked about yet, was science. And you talked a little bit about science at the beginning, but the idea that in the middle of the Industrial revolution, when we're really learning a lot more than we ever have about science and things like electromagnetism and things that you can't see, but science is saying, oh, it's there. This kind of fed the spiritualist movement because, you know, that's something else that you can't see that other people are saying, is there. So they're like, well, hey, if science is saying there are things out there we can't quite explain, but trust me, it's real, then why shouldn't I believe this stuff too?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Or, well, this electromagnetism, maybe that actually explains how spirits survive after death. It was a really wide open time as far as, you know, acceptance of possibilities rather than. No, science has said this is not possible, or it can't explain this, or you can't see it with your own eyes. So it won't. It doesn't jibe like there was a lot more willingness among people who were scientifically minded to say, well, maybe this is a good explanation of that. Let's investigate.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. The birth of science and medicine was a really crazy time.

[Josh Clark]

It really was. It really was.

[Chuck Bryant]

So should we take a break?

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Come on, man.

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think your beard holster is on too tight.

[Josh Clark]

It is. I haven't been able to feel my nose for about 15 minutes.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, well, go rub your nose and bring some feeling back and we'll talk about some of the first spiritualists.

[Josh Clark]

This episode is brought to you by Audi. We all know that feeling. A change of plans, an unexpected curve, a new opportunity. Instead of overthinking, what if you just said yes? Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

With the all new Audi Q3? The answer is easy. The Q3 is made for the yes life. With the power and room to handle whatever pops up.

[Josh Clark]

Yes to adventure, yes to escape. Yes to right now. Because saying yes without hesitation, that's real luxury.

[Chuck Bryant]

The all new Audi Q3 made for the yes life. Learn more at audiusa.com.

[Narrator/Announcer]

We spend so much time of our lives switched on. Scrolling, multitasking, reacting. Miraval Resorts is an invitation to unplug and be present. For over 30 years, Miraval has been a global leader in mindfulness and well being, helping people reconnect to what matters body, mind and spirit. Through meditation, yoga, time in nature, equine experiences and moments designed for true presence. Miraval offers practical tools you can carry into everyday life. Miraval meets you where you are and supports wellness that actually lasts. Discover more by visiting miravalresorts.com youm see it instantly. It's Coldwater Creek, the mark of exceptional workmanship and signature touches inspired by a Mountain west heritage. Distinctive styles created from quality fabrics, silhouettes perfected with just the right drape. Feel good fits offering ease of movement and thoughtful details to elevate your look. Coldwater Creek's authenticity is embodied in every piece, embracing its confident spirit that carries through to today. Discover Coldwater Creek clothing designed to fit your life the way you want for a wardrobe you can count on season after season. Visit coldwatercreek.com Shop the new spring collection at 20% off. Off $75 or more with code iheart20.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, I'm gonna say it. Spiritualists.

[Chuck Bryant]

Nice. And there.

[Josh Clark]

There was actually. So there's a bunch of factors that led to the beginning of all of this, including there was one that I also came across that we need and a guy named Andrew Jackson Davis who combined the ideas of the German hypnotist Franz Messmer with the Swedish philosopher of the soul, Emanuel Swedenborg. They were both 18th century. He kind of brought them together, and he was a bit of a nobody. But he emerged very, very soon after the Fox sisters became celebrities as a founder of the spiritualist movement. Almost like he was doing it off in isolation at the same time that all of this began.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So the Fox sisters figure into this really quite largely. And you can even pinpoint a date to what you might consider the birth of the modern American spiritualist movement is March 31, 1848, in Hydesville, New York, near Rochester, at a farm. This Fox family lived there. Real people. Not a family of cute little red, fuzzy creatures voiced by George clooney. Yeah, exactly. Mr. And Mrs. Fox had three daughters, actually, one was much older. Her name. She was 19 and 23 years older. Why was that funny?

[Josh Clark]

Because I saw a picture of her, and she's, like, the spitting image of Jeffrey Ross. You gotta look her up. Jeffrey Ross wearing a bonnet. That's what Leia Fox looked like.

[Chuck Bryant]

I didn't see. I saw the picture of the three of them, and I didn't get a good closeup. That's an unfortunate look for him and her.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Anybody, really?

[Chuck Bryant]

And I think he would admit that, too.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

He's doing all right, though.

[Josh Clark]

What if he had really thin skin? The roastmaster, he, like, couldn't take a joke against himself. Have you seen that Bump in Mike show? It's pretty good.

[Chuck Bryant]

No? Is that the roast competition thing?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. He and Dave Vettel just sit there and roast people. It's really good, man.

[Chuck Bryant]

I used to love Dave Attell back in the day.

[Josh Clark]

He has just turned into, like, the weird comedy genius friend that Jeffrey Ross has, and it shines through in this.

[Chuck Bryant]

Awesome. I'll check it out. So the Fox family older daughter Leah was 19 and 23 years older than younger Kate and Maggie, or I guess Maggie and Kate, if you're going in that order. And on that night, on March 31, 1848, they heard these rapping, knocking sounds, and they didn't know where it was coming from. And that kind of kick started this whole thing. In a weird way, this led. And we'll talk about the more specifics, but in a weird way, this led to them eventually saying, wait a minute. We can make some money if we convince people that young Kate and Maggie are a conduit to the other side.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. The thing is, when it went from like, oh, there's a ghost rapping, or knocking like a poltergeist kind of thing to this ghost will respond to questions from the sisters through rapping and knocking. Like, how old is Maggie? And it would rap like 15 times or something like that. And that really caught a lot of people's attention. And Maggie and Kate moved in with Leah. And apparently, from what I read, it was Leah whose idea it was to take the show on the road, Try to scam people out of money, and was not a super great person from what I read.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I just. Sorry. I was thinking of a rapping ghost and.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Got sidetracked.

[Josh Clark]

I'm the ghost of George Washington, and I'm here to say I love fruity Pebbles in a major way.

[Chuck Bryant]

You know what's funny is I was gonna do that exact same thing, but for the fox family. That's like the go to rap for guys like us.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, it totally is. Guys who can't rap.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I'm here to say something, Something, something in a something way.

[Josh Clark]

The Zack Morris method, I think, is what that is.

[Chuck Bryant]

I wonder if that's based on an actual rap. I guess there was one at some point that really did that. Right.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I think blondie was the one who popularized that.

[Chuck Bryant]

My name is blondie. I'm here to say I'm gonna try rap. Cause it's popular today.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly.

[Chuck Bryant]

So what were you saying? I was laughing. I didn't even notice. I'm sorry.

[Josh Clark]

Oh. Oh. Just that it was basically I was laying at Leah's feet for corrupting the younger sisters.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, she kind of. She ended up managing them as a unit, I think, later on, if I'm not mistaken. But there aren't great records of everything going on at the time. But the idea was that Kate and Maggie were the ones. It wasn't really her parents, but they're the ones who could actually communicate with this barn spirit. And so they said, you know what? They not only can talk to this spirit, Media starts getting ahold of these stories. And obviously back then, it was a very big deal with something like this coming out in the media with not a lot else going on. But they moved and would go away to other places and said, wherever they go, ghosts are talking to them. So, you guys, my daughters are talented and gifted. They're not just talking to what we think is a murder victim from our previous house.

[Josh Clark]

Right, right. Which just changed everything. And also, rather suspiciously, Leah suddenly realized that she was able to communicate with spirits too. So all three of the sisters were able to. But yeah, not just that one murder victim in their house that had been the original ghost. But Just about any ghost. And this was the beginning of the spiritualist movement, basically a prank by a couple of teenage girls that got way out of hand really fast. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And so what do they do? They start having these private sessions where people would pay money and they would wear these big long dresses that were in fashion at the time. And they would. No one's exactly sure the exact mechanism, but they would do some sort of toe knocking or something where they couldn't be seen. And that was the Morse code that they said was the ghost speaking to them.

[Josh Clark]

So it's really. They had like a little wooden stool under the table with them and they would take off their shoes surreptitiously. And from what I can gather, they could pop their knuckle of their toe up and down with enough force that it would make a thud on that wooden stool.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's creepy in and of itself.

[Josh Clark]

It was. Yeah, they should have just been like, forget all this spirit stuff. Watch this weird thing. But that was the phantom knocking. And we know that because Maggie later on confessed to the New York Tribune maybe, or the Post, one of them, and said, like, this is how. This is how we did it, actually, in an effort to take her sister Leah down. But it ended up taking the spiritualist movement down in large part, but that was it. Like thumping your knuckle on a wooden stool. They did this for 40, 40 years. They made a living around the world doing that and created a new religion from it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And by the time the spiritualism fad sort of died away, the two younger sisters were. And she recanted that confession, by the way, but everyone's like, yeah, you already said it. You try. But the two younger sisters and Maggie especially were in pretty bad shape with alcoholism. And they died sort of in a Collier Brothers esque way, very quietly and fairly destitute in New York city in the 1890s.

[Josh Clark]

Trapped under newspapers, maybe. But no, they had very interesting but also very sad lives. Like, I think Maggie married a skeptic and he died.

[Chuck Bryant]

Not a good move, right?

[Josh Clark]

He died. He talked her out of doing spiritualism, but she went back. After he died, Kate married another spiritualist and she had a huge career touring the world as a spiritualist. Made a lot of money, but apparently lost it all. And Leah, again, was just kind of, I guess, a bit of a villain in this story.

[Chuck Bryant]

Where's that movie, man?

[Josh Clark]

I was wondering the exact same thing. It's crazy it hasn't been made 50 times already, you know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that would be pretty cool. I couldn't even find a good documentary on it.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

On them at least. I'm sure there are plenty on that they're featured in. But give me those Fox sisters.

[Josh Clark]

No matter how you look at it too, whether you look at it from the aspect of a believer who thinks like this is where it all started, these two sisters. And there's plenty of reasons to believe if you're a credulous person or confiding, as Mark Twain would put it, that, you know, like the Andrew Jackson Davis guy who kind of started this thing on his own, supposedly wrote on March 31, 1848, that a spirit came to him and said, the work has begun. We just started something over here. And then later found out about the Fox sisters. Like there's all sorts of stuff you can believe. And so it's interesting from that respect. But also if you're just a pure dyed in the wool skeptic who do not believe in any kind of afterlife or soul or anything like that, it's equally interesting in a totally different way that this whole like almost century long movement started from that, you know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's crazy.

[Josh Clark]

I just love it. I love this whole story.

[Chuck Bryant]

So it's sweeping the nation at this point by the 1850s. And we're gonna go over some of the different things that they would do, some of the methods that they would use to communicate with the other side, to fake communicate with the other side. The first one is channeling. And these would be trance mediums. So. So this is like when you've seen in a movie when someone is just talking like I am in my regular voice and I'm entering the trance and I'm doing a lot of showy things to kind of get people, you know, pretty pumped up, feel like they're spending their money.

[Josh Clark]

Well, you're getting me pumped up, I'll tell you that.

[Chuck Bryant]

And all of a sudden, you know, I go into this other voice and I'm like a small child. Maybe the parents lost a child or I'm a woman or I'm Sammy Davis Jr. Hey, babe. I just came back to say that don't worry about me. This cat is doing just fine.

[Josh Clark]

I came back to say I love fruity Pebbles in a major way.

[Chuck Bryant]

He invented rap.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[Chuck Bryant]

So if you were a good, talented medium, that meant that you were probably a pretty good actor. You could probably do good voices sometimes. In the case of Cora Scott, who I know we've talked about her before,

[Josh Clark]

her name sounds familiar, I can't remember, but I have no recollection of talking about her.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, she sounds super familiar, but she was one of the top mediums, trance mediums, because she was this very sort of demure, attractive young lady and her whole demeanor was about that. And then she was apparently a great actor because she would go into these big, heavy, gruff voices and the gulf between who she was and who she was imitating was so great that everyone was just like, fantastic. Cora Scott, you're a genius.

[Josh Clark]

Well, also, yeah, she was like a little 12 year old girl when she started and supposedly she would take the stage and confidently discuss like physics and philosophy and all that stuff because there was some authoritative spirit who had basically taken possession of her.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And I looked up her picture and Kate Winslet, I think is from my casting couch is who I would throw in that movie.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Not as the 12 year old. That would be weird. Unless they do some sort of bad Irishman de aging. But she looked enough like her and she's a great actor. So

[Josh Clark]

channeling is what you kind of think of where somebody becomes possessed, the medium becomes possessed.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

There's also ones where they're just saying like, oh, I can hear what they're saying, but you can't because they're speaking to me through telepathy. Right, okay. That reminds me of John Edwards. Remember him crossing over with John Edwards?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I can't picture him. I think if I saw a picture of it, I would totally remember though.

[Josh Clark]

You would, you would. What a weird time the 90s were as far as stuff like that goes. Although I think his show ran from 2000 to 2004.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, but that sort of coincided with the Reverend Bob Dobbs and the televangelism and all that good stuff. Yeah, it was a crazy time.

[Josh Clark]

So then there's automatic writing was another big one too. And all of this should sound familiar again because the stuff just is so permeated in a pop culture, it's crazy. But automatic writing is instead of the medium's voice being taken over, the medium being possessed and speaking as the spirit, the spirit took over their hand and they would start writing. And so in just the same way, Cora Scott would have a completely different personality or a different voice or different accent or something like that. This like the handwriting or the word usage or anything like that would be different than the medium's normal handwriting. This is automatic writing. And there was actually.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm trying to decide if I could do that.

[Josh Clark]

Well, sometimes they would use their non dominant hand. So if you want to change your handwriting, just do that to start.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I can't.

[Josh Clark]

And then there was a woman named Pearl Curran who wrote at least 5,000 poems, novels and plays through automatic writing, all channeling the spirit of a 17th century woman from England named Patience Worth.

[Chuck Bryant]

Nice.

[Josh Clark]

That's prolific.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's a lot of words.

[Josh Clark]

And then what about direct voice?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, direct voice is when you are a medium, you contact a spiritual and the spirit is so powerful that they just speak to you directly. Like the medium is just sitting there with their mouth closed. And this happened usually in a dark room where they would have a business partner just behind the curtain, obviously talking. Or maybe they were just doing a bad ventriloquist kind of deal where it's dark enough where you can't really see their lips moving, throwing their voice. There was a woman named Leslie Flint. He's a medium. Oh, really?

[Josh Clark]

He looked like the old man from Up.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, did it make you cry when you looked at him?

[Josh Clark]

It did.

[Chuck Bryant]

My daughter just watched that. Here, have these balloons. So, yeah, Leslie Finn, I actually love that name for a man. So, yeah, I don't know why I assumed, but he would recreate famous people like Sammy Davis Jr. But wasn't very good at it, apparently, which is kind of funny. That makes us all a little bit more ridiculous and fun.

[Josh Clark]

Well, I was reading an obituary about him that was written by somebody who attended one of his, or a couple, I think, of his seances. And they said things like, you know, a lot of times you could tell like what the trickery was or whatever. But there were other times where he would, like, be speaking over the voice, which is tough to do with ventriloquism. Or one time he was tested, he was made to hold colored water in his mouth while the spirit voice was speaking. And you're like, wow, you know, that's pretty interesting. And then you just think, well, there's always an explanation for it. And, you know, maybe there's another person who is a confederate in the room, who knows? But it just goes to show that even still, even today and this guy's obituary that was written in the 90s, the 1990s, that they were like, yeah, you know, he was largely considered a trickster or fraud, but they'll still hedge and say, you know, but there were a couple of things, and at the very least, it's unexplained, which is pretty interesting and neat. But that doesn't necessarily mean that. Oh, no, there really was a spirit that was talking in the room thanks to him.

[Chuck Bryant]

Amazing. So we had table turning. This is At a. You know, this isn't like a theatrical performance. This is in a small room, everyone. And this kind of think Ouija board. With this. It's the same sort of thing, except the Ouija board would be the actual table that you're sitting at. Everyone would put their hands on the table and then the table would move or tilt or something when you're asking questions. So it's inhabiting the furniture. Of course, what's going on here is either like knee movements or sometime they had these rings on the medium's finger that were slotted and could move the table around without anyone noticing. Just another little parlor trick, basically.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Or, you know, the idea that, that you're moving the table yourself like a Ouija board. I can't remember what it's called, but basically your body is moving without your brain being aware of it. And then there's also just the straight up power of suggestion. And this applies to table turning and a lot of other stuff. But if you're saying, like, if you're the medium at a seance and you said the table is rising, it's rising. People who are willing to believe. A lot of people who went to seances wanted to believe or already believed in this stuff. Just the power of suggestion can be like, oh, it is raising a little bit, I can feel it, I can tell kind of thing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. My favorite, and I bet your favorite too, is ectoplasmic manifestations.

[Josh Clark]

That's a good one.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's pretty good. This is when you would actually, as a spiritualist, produce something physical. Something would manifest itself, an actual substance. And it was. They called it ectoplasm. And they could pull it from their body and it was just basically something that they would make beforehand out of whatever. I mean, they would make it out of all kinds of things. There was one story about someone who was actually gluing cut out faces from a magazine onto dolls, and those were ectoplasm spirits. But they would hide these things sometimes like up their butt or in their other body cavities. And they would pull these things out. And some of the pictures that you see online, if you look up ectoplasma, 1800s seance, is just the pictures themselves are hysterical and frightening all at the same time.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And especially now when you look back and see them, you're like, how did anybody fall for that? And it's really important to keep in mind. One, they wanted to believe. But two, these seances would be carried out in dark rooms to where you couldn't see Much at all. You just suddenly see some luminous cloth or something that you were led to believe was ectoplasm, kind of what looked like floating in the middle of the table or something like that. It's stuff that's really easy to explain, but in a darkened room that you've been sitting in for three hours communicating with spirits, you might be a lot more prone to. To buy into it than under normal circumstances.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. Maybe you're a little drunk, right?

[Josh Clark]

Tipsy on Chenops.

[Chuck Bryant]

Levitation was another big one. Nice little party trick. I actually could sort of do this for a little while. The David Blaine method. I don't know if you ever saw his. When he made himself levitate, it's just

[Josh Clark]

kind of hopping up and down in air, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

No, it's. You're thinking of trampolines.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, that's not the same thing.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, people can see those.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, it's all about the angle. With the David Blaine method of getting them to see you from the right angle to where what you're really doing is you're rising your body up with just one. Like, just your first three toes on your right foot, and you're hiding that with your other foot, so it looks like you're just sort of levitating a few inches off the ground. And then you act like you're unsteady, and then you land back down and go, oh, boy. That was a good one. That was pretty powerful.

[Josh Clark]

So wait a minute. David Blaine can raise his entire body weight with three toes?

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, I mean, he's on his toes. I mean, I could do it at the time, too. This was in the 90s, man.

[Josh Clark]

That's impressive. I don't think I've ever had the kind of toe strength that that is required to do that.

[Chuck Bryant]

You can raise yourself up with one

[Josh Clark]

foot in a seated position.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, no, no, you're standing.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, oh, oh, oh. I got you.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah. So what you're doing is you're standing there.

[Josh Clark]

I got you.

[Chuck Bryant]

And then you raise yourself off the ground with just the toes on your right foot, let's say. And you're keeping your left foot is shielding that so you can't quite see it.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, no, I've got it.

[Chuck Bryant]

And it just creates. If you got someone at the right angle. And I got pretty good at it. My roommate Justin was like. Like, you're getting better, mate.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, I'm getting drunker.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, both of those things were happening.

[Josh Clark]

I thought you were talking about, like, you know, like a fake ear or something like that. Where they're sitting cross legged and they're levitating. I was like to do that with just three toes. That in and of itself is pretty impressive. But.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, what are the other. There's another couple of things they did too. What are those?

[Josh Clark]

Sphere photography. Pretty straightforward stuff where, you know, this is the very beginnings of photography. So people didn't understand double exposures unless you were a photographer. But if you were, you could do all sorts of neat stuff like double expose something and put a ghostly face in the background over someone's shoulder.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's great.

[Josh Clark]

I saw one. I saw a spirit photograph where it was a ghostly arm. It also could have been a genie coming out of a bottle. One of the two. It looked exactly the same, but it was like it was on a table. So they were like, this is a spirit arm levitating the table. So they're like tying three things together. Table turning, levitating and spirit photography.

[Chuck Bryant]

Those are great. I think the spirit photography. Just because they were taking advantage of this new technology, people did not even understand.

[Josh Clark]

Right. It was like the deepfake of the time.

[Chuck Bryant]

And they were probably like, everybody, we got maybe three years.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, we better get prolific.

[Chuck Bryant]

And then everyone's gonna be like, oh, that's just double exposure.

[Josh Clark]

Right, right. And then people, like I said earlier too, a lot of the new age stuff that's tied into spiritualism today, like tarot readings or, oh, I don't know, astrology, that kind of stuff that had nothing to do with this because spiritualists, all of it grew out of Christianity. So there was some Christian basis to all of the spiritualist practices. And even though in a lot of ways it was extraordinarily heretical, there was no religious leader in charge of anything. There was no scripture or doctrine or anything like that. It was still very much tied into and born out of Christianity. So stuff like occult things would have been very much frowned upon by spiritualists.

[Chuck Bryant]

Totally. Should we take another break?

[Josh Clark]

I think we should.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, we'll take another break and tell you about what the Civil War had to do with all of this, right after this.

[Josh Clark]

This episode is brought to you by Audi. We all know that feeling. A change of plans, an unexpected curve, a new opportunity. Instead of overthinking, what if you just said yes?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. With the all new Audi Q3, the answer is easy. The Q3 is made for the yes life, with the power and room to handle whatever pops up.

[Josh Clark]

Yes to adventure, yes to escape, yes to right now. Because saying yes without hesitation, that's real luxury.

[Chuck Bryant]

The all new Audi Q3 made for the yes life. Learn more at audiusa.com.

[Narrator/Announcer]

We spend so much time of our lives switched on, scrolling, multitasking, reacting. Miraval Resorts is an invitation to unplug and be present. For over 30 years, Miraval has been a global leader in mindfulness and well being, helping people reconnect to what matters body, mind and spirit through meditation, yoga, time in nature, equine experiences and moments designed for true presence. Miraval offers practical tools you can carry into everyday life. Miraval meets you where you are and supports wellness that actually lasts. Discover more by visiting miravalresorts.com youm see it instantly. It's Coldwater Creek, the mark of exceptional workmanship and signature touches inspired by a Mountain west heritage. Distinctive styles created from quality fabrics, silhouettes perfected with just just the right drape feel good fits offering ease of movement and thoughtful details to elevate your look. Coldwater Creek's authenticity is embodied in every piece, embracing its confident spirit that carries through to today. Discover Coldwater Creek clothing designed to fit your life the way you want for a wardrobe you can count on season after season. Visit coldwatercreek.com shop the new spring collection and get 20% off $75 or more with code iheart20.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so pre Civil War in the United States, spiritualism was popular. It was booming, but it was more like the kind of thing that you did in a theater and you would go see it as a curiosity or you might just maybe even knew it was fake and it was just entertainment. There wasn't a lot going on back then.

[Josh Clark]

Kind of like looking at penguins in a zoo today. Like, you know they're fake, but it's still fun to look at, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Why not go pay a nickel to see Madam whatever do her little erotic. Cause we'll get into that. These got a little sexy at times too.

[Josh Clark]

Her little ghost shimmy.

[Chuck Bryant]

This is part of the draw the ghost shimmy. But we need to talk about a couple of things here. The Civil War for sure. But one of the things that was going on, we've been talking a lot about the northeastern United States and there's a very good reason it didn't take hold in the South. It's because the way Christianity was, and some might argue still is in the south, didn't leave a lot of room. The hierarchy didn't leave a lot of room for other schools of thought. And it was basically, even though it wasn't necessarily a cult, it was just shut down kind of from the beginning

[Josh Clark]

in the south, they're like, we'll stick to our voodoo, thank you very much.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, exactly.

[Josh Clark]

Keep that spiritualism stuff out.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So it was just not a big thing in the South. The mediums at the time would move off the stage sometimes and have these private seances. Sometimes they would get in touch with a family member, but oftentimes it would just be kind of the same as the stage show. They would say, like, I'm gonna get in touch with Sammy Davis Jr. Or whatever the popular dead figure at the time was.

[Josh Clark]

Sure. But that was for, like, pre Civil War. It was an entertainment, it was an amusement. But when the Civil War came, a lot of people died in the Civil War. And that means that a lot of people who survived the Civil War lost a loved one. And these might have been people who, you know, went off to fight and just never came back, never heard from again, know nothing, have no idea where they died, where they were buried. And so that kind of grief, you know, that transcends any kind of time or place, and it created a lot of people, a large population of people who were very interested in getting in touch with their dead relative. And it just so happened that at the time, there was a movement afoot that said, oh, well, this guy over here is actually really good at getting in touch with the dead. Why don't you have a seance with him? You just have to, you know, pay him to do this work. Because it is a lot of work. Whether you are a believer, a skeptic, it's a lot of work to have been a medium during this time. And so they would be paid and they would make a living like this. And so these seances, these performances were decreased in size, but vastly increased in frequency.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, A lot more spiritualists doing smaller mediums for families or smaller seances for families. And this same thing happened after World War I as well. So it's, you know, it's kind of all fun and games until it gets to this level. If it's a big theater show, fine, whatever. Go pay your money and get entertained for an hour. But when you are taking people's money who have lost loved ones in battle, then that's when it gets kind of really ugly, if you ask me.

[Josh Clark]

Right. And that's where I think, a lot of the genuine skeptics who beat this kind of stuff to a pulp, that's the place that they're coming from. You know, not necessarily that it's like an affront to science or reason or common sense or anything like that. But that there are a lot of people who have parted money from people who were bereaved at the time. And you just, you don't take advantage of people who are undergoing grief. That's a pretty shoddy thing to do. That's a life lesson right there for everybody listening, especially youngsters.

[Chuck Bryant]

Not only that, not only taking their money, but I imagine in a lot of cases people made real life decisions based on things that would happen in these seances, you know?

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's like sell the family farm, like stuff like that.

[Josh Clark]

Oh God, I hadn't thought about that. And not only sell the family farm, sell it to me, the medium. That's what your dead brother wants you to do.

[Chuck Bryant]

For what? Something's coming through. They're saying pennies on the dollar.

[Josh Clark]

That's great. Oh wait, it's the opposite of great.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's terrible. So by the end of the 20th century, things started to decline a bit. One was just pure greed. There were too many of them out there. They were all trying to outdo one another. They were trying to draw bigger crowds and more money and they were getting more outrageous by doing so. And that meant just like anything when you try and do that, the bigger you try to force something to be, sometimes that can lead to its kind of early death, I guess.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, go big or go home, but eventually you're going to go home anyway.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's the end of that saying. I love it.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So part of it was that they were making more and more audacious claims, but also there were more and more scientists like those. That open minded scientific approach had become a lot more hardened toward spiritualism and mediums because so many had been investigated and found to just be total frauds. Most of the time. The outcome was the medium couldn't reproduce this ectoplasm or get in touch with the spirit when they were under controlled conditions. Or they went for it and they were found to be a fraud. Like the knuckle of their toe was found to be wrapping on a stool or something like that. And so as these reports kept coming out, more and more these scientific investigators were like, I don't think any of this is real. And they would be interviewed in newspapers and the papers would run these articles. And so over time, just the general public kind of turned away from spiritualism as hokum and bunk. But the thing is, not everyone did. And even still today, go ask Dan Aykroyd. There is a group of people who adhere to spiritualism as a religion.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, for sure. And one of the big reasons that it didn't completely go away was spiritualists were very smart in that they would use influencers of the day in their act. They would seek out these well known people. They would tour the world, sometimes tour Europe and do seances with royal families of various countries. The newspapers write about this. They would get a quote or maybe demand a quote from someone like well known, and they would say, all right, I'll come to a seance, but you gotta give me a quote that I can use on my flyer or whatever.

[Josh Clark]

What's that called?

[Chuck Bryant]

Pull quote?

[Josh Clark]

No, no, that fallacy, the logical fallacy. Appeal to authority, I think.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah, the appeal to authority, sure.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Which makes a lot of sense. If people see, oh well, they did a seance for the Prince of Monaco or Sammy Davis Jr. Then it's got to be good enough for me. It's not pseudoscience at all, because why would Sammy Davis Jr. Believe in pseudoscience?

[Josh Clark]

Right. He's just a Satanist, he doesn't care about pseudoscience.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

So one of the other authorities that they would appeal to, Chuck, was what this one, there's an Expose written in 1897 and by God, if I can't, I can't find it anywhere in my tabs. But it was basically. Oh, Revelations of a Spirit Medium is what it was called. And it was written anonymously by a medium, a huckster, a fraud. And I'm pretty sure it was published in 1897. And it is like 400 pages exposing all the tips and all that stuff, all the tricks. But one of there's a glossary of like 19th century slang words among hoaxters. It's amazing. But one of them was the top heavy, and that was a scientist who was over credentialed. They had all these PhDs and everything like that. So they were book smart, but they were super gullible. And if you could get a top heavy to basically say like, I can't explain it, science can't explain it, that would go a very long way to bolstering your career, you know?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Even if you talk to 100 scientists and one of them was a top heavy who'd said something valuable to you, that's the only one. You're the tenth dentist of the nine out of ten dentists.

[Josh Clark]

Right? Exactly, exactly. And that's all you need. Especially if the other nine dentists just keep their traps shut because they have better things to do. But there were a bunch of people who would not keep their traps shut. I guess actually a legendary top heavy, even though he wasn't a scientist, credentialed or otherwise, was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm sorry. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

[Chuck Bryant]

By the way, before I forget, if there's not a band called the 10th dentist out there, then I don't know what to think anymore.

[Josh Clark]

That's a good one. Remember those Trident commercials? I think it was four out of five dentists. One of them.

[Chuck Bryant]

How was it four out of five?

[Josh Clark]

He was bit on the testicles by a squirrel before he could pronounce how? Before he could recommend dentine or Trident or something like that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Maybe it should be the fifth. It is four out of five. It's not nine out of ten.

[Josh Clark]

Do you remember that, though?

[Chuck Bryant]

No.

[Josh Clark]

It was a great.

[Chuck Bryant]

What was the. Was it we make holes in teeth?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Remember that? The cartoon.

[Josh Clark]

That was Crest. Okay, do you want to hear. You want to hear the pinnacle of 80s marketing to kids? My third grade, maybe fourth grade class put on a play about toothpaste. Yes. And cavities. Sponsored by Crest.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. They had a big push back then for taking over the minds of American children.

[Josh Clark]

Well, it worked. What's funny is I now use Aquafresh, the orange tube. Oh, man. If there is a favorite toothpaste that any boy in America has ever had, that is it, and it's mine.

[Chuck Bryant]

That was from the 80s.

[Josh Clark]

No, it is now, but I'm saying the Crest takeover of my mind didn't work.

[Chuck Bryant]

Gotcha.

[Josh Clark]

I'm an Aquafish boy now.

[Chuck Bryant]

Is that the one with the tri color?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Which is another very appealing part of it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Man, you'd buy it all, don't you?

[Josh Clark]

I do.

[Chuck Bryant]

So gullible.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I am a little gullible.

[Chuck Bryant]

You're like an Arthur Conan Doyle.

[Josh Clark]

So he, if you recognize his name, he was the author of Sherlock Holmes. Of course. He was super into this. He joined the Society for Psychical Research, which was an early skeptical believer society. And he always. He bought into this. He was just convinced. But on the other side of the equation were skeptics who were not convinced, who basically didn't keep their mouths shut. They were the other four who would say, like, no, everybody, actually. This guy's wrong. My esteemed colleague is. Has been taken. But then, the head of those guys was Harry Houdini, amazingly enough.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, Houdini. Which makes it super ironic that at Magic Castle in Los Angeles, they have long had Harry Houdini seance nights.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Where you can go into The Harry Houdini room and do a seance.

[Josh Clark]

That's neat.

[Chuck Bryant]

Which is, you know, it's all for fun, but it is kind of funny that he was very much against this stuff. Although, supposedly, if you go to the Magic Castle, they'll tell you that he did. And he may have really done this. Is told his wife before he died that, hey, listen, if I was wrong, I'll come back and I'll contact you and let you know you're right.

[Josh Clark]

And he came back and he said, I've got good news and I've got bad news. The good news is there is a heaven. The bad news is you're scheduled to pitch there tonight. Do you remember that? Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark book?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Is that what that was from?

[Josh Clark]

It was like two friends who played baseball together. They had a pact, like Harry Houdini and his wife, apparently.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think that's a. There's different versions of that joke, though, man.

[Josh Clark]

The illustrations in that book were just, bar none.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that was great stuff. And by the way, we should give a big rest in peace to Mr. Mort Drucker, who passed away.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

A couple of weeks ago in real time. But that was a big one. We talk about Mad magazine a lot. And Mort Drucker was my number one with a bullet. Favorite artist.

[Josh Clark]

Agreed.

[Chuck Bryant]

He passed on. And he was one of the greats.

[Josh Clark]

He definitely shaped my childhood in a very large way.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Big time.

[Josh Clark]

With his drawings.

[Chuck Bryant]

RIP sir.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Nice.

[Chuck Bryant]

We'll hear from you soon.

[Josh Clark]

Right? He's like, you guys are pitching tonight?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, no, both of us.

[Josh Clark]

So Harry Houdini, he's like, yeah, Josh is gonna FL it and Chuck's gonna have to be brought in for the save. So Harry Houdini. Harry Houdini created this long standing tradition of stage magicians exposing the fraud of spiritualism, basically.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Because they were. They're like. They're stealing our tricks.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And it's pretty cool. Like, he would incorporate into his stage shows a lot of these things that spiritualists were doing to show how they did it. And he was relentless at it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, he was very relentless, but it was very cool.

[Josh Clark]

And the fact that it's still going on today, Richard Wiseman, who's come up a few times, he was in the Sheldrake episode. He was in the ghosts episode. And I think we somehow misconstrued his research in the ghosts episode to suggest that he had proven ghosts exist. I don't remember exactly the details of it, but we got that one wrong. But and in this case, he has recreated seances from the 19th century and has shown how willing people are to totally misreport the events that went on in the seance to say that, yes, you know, the table did levitate or all the stuff that he's studying under these controlled conditions. And it's basically shown not just that the medium himself, or more often herself, as we'll see, was engaging in fraud, but also that the audience was. Had a willing suspension of disbelief and were part of this too, by saying, like, I felt the phantom arm tap me on the shoulder. The medium didn't have anything to do with that. That was just something that kind of came out of the environment that was produced in the seance, you know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Pretty interesting.

[Josh Clark]

It is pretty interesting.

[Chuck Bryant]

So we'll finish up here with this. I thought this was very interesting, actually, the social implications of this. Most of the. Not all, but a lot of these spiritualists were women in the 19th century for some practical reasons. They could wear these long dresses that could hide talented toe knuckles. They would not because of the time. They wouldn't get, like, searched too closely, obviously, because you wouldn't do that if you were a scientist trying to examine whether or not a spiritualist was real or not. And that led to. There were men, for sure. But that led to this kind of interesting side note. One is that women could make their own money. And so it's easy to poo poo something like this. But I'm sure those Fox sisters made a lot more dough than they ever could have as doing anything else offered and available to them at the time.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

So that's a good thing. That gave them some agency. But it was no coincidence that sometimes the voice from the other side would champion sort of progressive views because this turned out to be a chance to sort of reshape policy in a way. If you were a woman and you were a spiritualist, it would be very easy to say, you know, they're saying that women should have more rights and if not, they will come back and haunt you all. And that kind of ended up happening in some ways.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. There was a huge connection between spiritualism and spiritualist movement and abolitionism, the women's suffrage movement, the women's temper, or the temperance movement, a lot of these progressive movements, workers rights. And if you were an abolitionist and you didn't believe in this kind of thing, you might be like, I'm not really happy about that. But at the same time, it kind of whipped up this fervor in that some people would like their spirits that were being channeled by the medium were saying things like, you guys better get on the train of abolitionism. You better get rid of slavery. And it actually did, especially in these theatrical settings, have a widespread influence on getting the message out there through the spirit communication, weirdly enough. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's almost like one could say anything at all at something like, oh, I don't know, a campaign rally. And people would believe it if they were an ardent enough believer in the speaker.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. Especially if they'd attach their ego to you and your success. Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Very strange.

[Josh Clark]

So I just want to give two shouts out one to the probably the greatest ghost movie that involves seances ever.

[Chuck Bryant]

Ghost?

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Chuck Bryant]

Whoopi Goldberg?

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right.

[Josh Clark]

The Others with Nicole Kidman.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that was good.

[Josh Clark]

So good. Don't spoil it. The greatest short story involving seances in the spiritualist movement, written by arguably the greatest American writer of all time, Joyce Carol Oates. It's called Nightside. It's a short story. It's the same title as a collection of her short stories from the 70s, I think, 1977, Nightside. Look it up and thank me later. It's seriously just bone chilling how good it is.

[Chuck Bryant]

I wonder if we could get in touch with her and read that for our Halloween episode this year.

[Josh Clark]

I tweeted to her once, kind of crassly, and never heard anything back, even though she saw on Twitter, I know she saw that tweet.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hey, JoyceCarol Oates, you think you're so cool, right?

[Josh Clark]

I would love to read that one. There's another one, too. She's probably not just the greatest American writer, but the greatest American horror writer, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

She's great.

[Josh Clark]

She's so wonderful. I would read any of her stories. So if you out there know Joyce Carol Oates who are in contact with her and or her publisher, please, we would love to read in our ad free episode one of her short stories for Halloween.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. So I think she might like that aspect.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. Oh, one last thing, Chuck. There's a place called Lilydale in New York, appropriately enough, which is basically a spiritualist community, where you can go basically be among spiritualists as a religious today.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wonderful.

[Josh Clark]

Since I said today, it's time for listener mail,

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm gonna call this. We haven't gotten emails in two weeks from people because something's wrong with our email server. So it's on bidets again. You're gonna get a couple on bidets, I think.

[Josh Clark]

All right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hey, guys. Listening to your recent episode on bidets reminded Me of. Of a funny story I thought you might like. 2004, my family bought a new house in the suburbs of Detroit. It was designed and built by an exceptionally pragmatic, efficient, yet lacking in aesthetic appreciation engineer. To our surprise and my husband's delight, as he is from Spain, the master bathroom included a separate bidet unit. Now remember, this is 2004 and people were not as familiar in this country. Most people that visited our home had no idea what it was and we also made the decision to not give advance notice when they went to the bathroom. Invariably, people would emerge from the bathroom trip either a little wet or with an embarrassed look on their face as they confessed to having explored the contraption and released a stream of water onto themselves and into our bathroom. Was always good for a laugh. I sure appreciate you guys. When we moved from Michigan to the south, to the South Carolina, what

[Josh Clark]

Was she once? Ms. South Carolina? Because that would explain that last bit.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I thought it was. She meant the South. And I didn't see on the next line it said Carolina. So that was just me being.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, oh, okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Your voices accompanied us as we made many 12 hour trips back and forth. We enjoyed the knowledge and the tangents. Even the tangents. And now you continue to soothe and educate me as I go on my 4 to 5 mile rectangle, recreational walks during the pandemic quarantine and temporary, hopefully furlough. And that is from Michelle Salcedo.

[Josh Clark]

Nice. Thanks a lot, Michelle. We're glad to know that you're doing okay there. Hanging out, waiting for things to get

[Chuck Bryant]

back to normal in the South Carolina.

[Josh Clark]

That's right, Chuck. And as it will eventually go back to normal. And in the meantime, if you want to get in touch with us like Michelle did to let us know some silly story about a bidet or what have you, you can get in touch with us. Send us an email to stuff podcastheartradio.com

[Narrator/Announcer]

Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Chuck Bryant]

If you were to try two zero sugar colas with their labels removed and make the decision based on taste alone, do you know which one you'd choose?

[Josh Clark]

Well, last year Pepsi put that to the test for tens of thousands of people across the country in a revival of the iconic Pepsi challenge. And the results were clear. 66% of people preferred the taste of Pepsi Zero Sugar over Coke. Zero Sugar. That's the idea behind the Pepsi paradox that when labels and bias disappear people prefer the taste of Pepsi Zero Sugar.

[Chuck Bryant]

It really makes you wonder are you choosing the zero sugar cola that you actually prefer or are you settling for the label that you think you prefer?

[Josh Clark]

Go out and try Pepsi Zero Sugar today. You deserve taste. You deserve Pepsi.

[Narrator/Announcer]

We spend so much time of our lives switched on, scrolling, multitasking, reacting Mirror of all resorts is an invitation to unplug and be present. For over 30 years, Miraval has been a global leader in mindfulness and well being, helping people reconnect to what mattersbody mind and spirit through meditation, yoga, time in nature, equine experiences and moments. Designed for true presence, Miraval offers practical tools you can carry into everyday life. Miraval meets you where you are and supports wellness that actually lasts. Discover more by visiting miravalresorts.com youm see it instantly. It's Coldwater Creek, the mark of exceptional workmanship and signature touches inspired by a Mountain west heritage. Distinctive styles created from quality fabrics, silhouettes perfected with just the right drape. Feel good fits offering ease of movement and thoughtful details to elevate your look. Coldwater Creek's authenticity is embodied in every piece, embracing its confident spirit that carries through to today. Today, discover Coldwater Creek clothing designed to fit your life the way you want. For a wardrobe you can count on season after season, visit coldwatercreek.com shop the new spring collection at 20% off $75 or more with code iheart20 this is an iheart podcast.

[Josh Clark]

Guaranteed human.