National Park After Dark - 182: A Good Ol' Fashioned Séance: The White House and President's Park

Episode Date: October 23, 2023

Victorians, they’re just like us! Er, well, kinda. It’s easy to judge a group of people who strapped raw meat to their faces for beauty or fastened taxidermy cats on their hats for fashion, but their obsessions went far beyond beauty and style. They were fanatic about death and speaking to the deceased. Today we dive into the history of Spiritualism and get familiar with one of its most famous and loyal followers, Mary Todd Lincoln.For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!BetterHelp: National Park After Dark is sponsored by BetterHelp. Get 10% off.Microdose Gummies: Use code NPAD to get free shipping and 30% off your first order.Badlands: Listen Badlands wherever you listen to podcasts.Embrace Pet Insurance: Use our link to sign up for pet insurance today!For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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One of the advantages of being in the present is being able to reflect on the past. In our own lives, we do this mostly while looking back on former questionable decisions while asking ourselves, what was I thinking? Drawing from personal experience, I can think of a few right off the top, layering four tank tops to a school dance, box dyeing my hair, dating that guy at 17, or going on the special K diet in high school. Thanks early 2000s media, at a larger scale, we do this with era's past, and as a society, we really like to give the Victorians in particular a lot of flack.

Aside from their more serious, deep-rooted issues like extreme social inequality, lack of child labor laws and selling off wives instead of simply divorcing them, they also had some very bizarre practices. Women would use arsenic lotion on their faces to keep their skin pale, strap raw meat to their face to help with acne, or how about the old, let's add strychnine on purpose to our beer to cut back on the cost of hops. But there is nothing more intriguing than the Victorian's obsession with death.

From death photography, set morning periods, mandatory morning attire, hiring professional mourners for funerals, jewelry made out of the deceased's hair, unwrapping mummies brought back from Egyptian holidays at gatherings like some sort of morbid Tupperware party, and consuming corpses for medicinal purposes, there's a lot to unpack here. But they weren't just fanatic about death itself, but what comes after bodily death? And while that's not a Victorian thing, humans have been quite obsessed with death, and A, whether or not an afterlife exists, and B, if it does, What does it look like and how does one get there for thousands of years? But the Victorians, well, they took it a step further.

Rather than keeping the conversation amongst themselves, the mere living, they went straight to the source. While gathered around a small, oval table, they would sit, place their hands gently on its surface, blow out the candles, close their eyes, and take a deep breath before someone would speak out into the darkness and ask, Is there anyone here with us? Welcome to National Park After Dark.

Okay, well, there was a lot of very interesting information there. I have to say I resonated most with the women who used to put raw meat on their face for acne because I just think back and I'm like, well, that's probably better than what I would put on my face because do you remember those like straight up alcohol pads that you would buy? in a jar and you would just wipe them all over your face. It is a better step than straight up arsenic, but it's not much. Is it better than raw meat? It's better than raw meat, though.

It really was. They were like the round pads. Are you talking about? Yeah. And you opened them and there was like this horrible smell that came and you would wipe them on your face and your face would burn for like a solid five minutes and you'd be like, oh, it's working. But really you were like taking years off your life.

And that's why we go to medical spas now. and pay thousands of dollars to reverse that damage that we have done. Everyone's like, why do people in their 30s look so young now? It's like because we all have to pay a lot of money for the damage we did to ourselves when we were 16. There's so many questionable decisions. Like when I was writing this, I was like, oh, do I have so many to choose from? The beginning of your intro, I was like, oh, my God, this is so nostalgic. I know, in an upsetting way, but yeah.

Yes, very upsetting. So anyways, I'm really, really excited about this episode because it's one of my favorite topics of all time. And, well, a lot of my favorite topics. I love the Victorians. They get a lot of shit. But God bless them. And also the afterlife and beliefs regarding what happens to you after bodily death, if anything happens. And kind of the obsession that the Victorians had about that.

But before we start, we have. we have some tea to spill. We have so much tea to spill. And you have all been asking us for a long time and reaching out to us and asking questions. And we honestly haven't been able to until right now. So before we get started on this story, settle in because we have a lot of tea to spill on our merch situation. And we have been, can I tell you, Cassie has held me back. She's like, Danielle, we legally and contractually cannot say anything yet. So she's been the angel. But now that we are free, she is ready to go. The devil is on our shoulders and we're ready. That's right. So without, we don't want to get like too into the details because honestly, a lot of the nitty gritty stuff doesn't matter to you guys.

It's like logistical mumbo jumbo. Yeah. But essentially, like Cassie said, we have heard everyone's messages or comments, emails, things of that nature regarding like questions about everything. from are you going to restock X, Y, and Z? Can we get this or that design? Where is my order? What's going on? Yeah. Where is my order? Why has it taken three months and no one's responding to me? Yeah. Great question. We'd love to tell you. We would love to tell you finally. So just to begin, Cassie and I, since the very beginning of offering merchandise, have handled it ourselves. We're pretty much a two-woman show aside from Lauren who edits our audio for us. Huge shout out to Lauren. She's like the secret person behind the entire show and this entire show would be shit without her

because she edits out all the horrible stuff we say and yeah, like our burbs and makes us cohesive. Yeah. So if you guys know, Lauren, please say hi and tell her thank you. Yes. Hi, Lauren. Hi. Hi. Thank you.

You're an angel. So aside from Lauren who does our audio, we handle everything else when it comes to National Park After Dark. And for a very long time, that included merchandise. And when we started getting deeper involved with our group trips, it just added another layer and our hands were already full. So we made the decision to start to explore potential partnerships for merchandise, which I will say was not an easy decision because for us, we are very much, one, control freaks when it comes to the podcast. And two, we are very upfront about everything.

We want to be transparent about everything that we do. and we have been with the podcast and literally every aspect of the entire production of it with you guys. And so going into a merch contract, it was a kind of a difficult decision because we were going to have to let up on the reins a little bit and let other people take over. So it wasn't, it wasn't chosen lightly. And we took a long time researching people before we chose a company to work with. Yeah, we took several meetings with several different companies and we made the best decision that we thought. we could at the time. Everything was great for the first launch. We were in great communication. Everything was going smoothly, literally leading up to our second launch. And then all of a sudden,

we started getting ghosted, essentially. So our point of contacts over at our merch company stopped responding to us altogether. Right around the same time you all started reaching out to us asking questions about where your merch orders were. And this was for our summertime launch. everyone's asking us questions and as soon as we started getting those we were like hold on a second what is going on so we reach out and got ghosted no one responded to us for i will tell you more than six weeks yeah no one no one responded to us we had repeated emails going back and forth until finally long story short we had to get kind of a third party involved to get any sort of answer. And it wasn't until late August where we finally had a meeting that got rescheduled many

times last minute. We finally get face to face with someone from the company. And we were told that, lo and behold, lo and behold, they had gone bankrupt and did not tell us for and had no money, took all of your money, it took the orders, and had no way to produce them because they didn't have money to fulfill it or the okay to actually continue production. And they did not tell us. that they were ignoring us. So we had nothing to tell you guys. And then when they finally did tell us, they told us that orders were going to be out very shortly and promised us that within the next week, all the orders would be shipping out and that things were handled and ready. And lo and behold again, that was not true. And it took several more weeks for them to start getting orders out, which they did

start to get some orders out. But I know that there was also some difficulties with those orders because they were saying some people overordered or people were reaching out because they hadn't gotten their orders and they weren't being responded to. Some people asked for refunds. They weren't getting refunds. And we were finding all this out at the same time as you guys. So we couldn't, we couldn't answer. We had no response for you guys and we wanted to answer you correctly. And whenever we reached out to our merch providers, they said, tell them to reach out to us. So when we did respond, it was, hey, they have the best information for you. They can help you out with your order. we didn't have access to that information ourselves. And clearly it was kind of just they were giving everyone

the runaround, including us. And just so everyone knows, like, we have not received, like, people were saying, yeah, they're like, you know what, we want our money back. We don't have your money. We have no money. We've never seen a dollar like in the last however many many months. So we haven't even gotten paid for, from our first launch that we did with all of you guys, where we, um, back in like April or May, we haven't even received money from that. So I know that a lot of you guys buy the merch, one, because you love the show, but two, because you want to help support us.

And we have not received a dime from that. And it doesn't look like we're going to. It really feels like this merch provider is taking advantage because we're kind of small fish in a big pond. And it costs a lot of money and legal fees to get the money that they owe us. So it's looking like that's not going to happen for us. but honestly, the biggest part for us is just being transparent with you.

This is not how we do business. We are honest with everything that we do and we want good customer service. We want you all to be happy. And we want it to reflect our brand properly. So this has been a huge, it's been really disappointing for us and it's affected our brand, which we don't appreciate. And also it's affected all of you guys. And if you're listening right now and you're waiting on a merch order that hasn't arrived for a long

time and you're getting no communication or anything. One, I say reach out to them and request a refund. And if they don't give it to you because they don't have the money, go to your bank and file a fraudulent charge because that's what it is at this point. And we don't want you to be losing money on something that you paid for and you're never going to get. And also, it's not supporting us at all. We have not made a penny off of this and it doesn't look like we're going to. I mean, I think we got paid out once at the like months and months ago for the first original like couple of orders but besides that we have not made any money yeah and that's not fair to anyone it's not fair to you guys it's not fair to us moving forward we are playing we're trying to navigate merch again and figure it out because we love

doing it and we love to see you guys out in the wild with it and we have these awesome designs but for right now we're kind of navigating what those next steps will look like so we can either work with a trusted partner or go back to doing it ourselves. We don't want to run into this situation ever again because we don't want to, this is disappointing for us and we just want to apologize because we never, we never want this to be what our brand looks like it is because it's, this isn't us, this isn't what we want to do. And we don't want to lie to you guys or or make you feel like you're lied to or make you feel like we're stealing from you because that is certainly not what we're trying to do.

And we are trying very hard on our end to make this right. So without a mind, I guess there's nothing, there's probably nothing up right now. We'll, we'll do a lot. When we do our march again, we'll, we'll let you guys know when it's safe to buy from us again. We'll tell you when it's safe. Yeah. Yeah. So with that probably went on for a really long time, but we have been waiting to say something. We've been so long. And like Cassie said briefly, we didn't say anything number one because we didn't have the information, point blank. We had no communication with them. So we had no. idea what to tell you because we didn't have answers, but also because we were under contract

and our contract with them is now terminated. So we are over. It's over. We are never ever getting back together. So we are free to let you know. Yeah. So that's pretty much it. We'll keep you informed with what our next steps are regarding merch.

But for now, that's what has been happening over the last few months when we've kind of been silent because we had no other option. Yeah. Also, if you follow any other brands that are doing merch, see who they're working with before you buy anything because they are very much in the whole of, they owe other people way more money than they owe us and they are doing some sketchy shit. So keep an eye out on who you're ordering from for other people because some people are stuck in contracts with them. Yeah. We are like the lowest on the totem pole as far as. Which is also why they've probably been ignoring us. Yeah. They're like they don't make as much money as all these other brands, so we don't care about them. We care because we love our community and it's shitty that people aren't getting their orders.

Okay. Well, now that that's off our chest, I feel so much better. Yeah. It's like, oh, we could breathe. We're so sorry. Please. And it just sucks because not only it's a bad experience for everyone like we just mentioned, but we also have a lot of interesting ideas and cool thoughts as far as like what we want to do.

It's so many fun things that we're supposed to come out this fall and like during the summer. And like we wanted spookies and stuff. And don't even get me started on the live show merch tables that we wanted. And we wanted live show merch tables. Like none of this happened. We had so many plans and all of them were held back because of this. So, 2004, we're going to come back in hot with some really good ideas and fun things.

And we just need a little while to rebound from this because it's been a journey. And we've put in a lot of money ourselves like out of our own pockets to do advertisement and photos. And it's just, yeah. it's been it's been a little rough so 2024 we'll come back maybe earlier but hopefully for the holiday season I hope we'll see I don't know we'll see I don't know I feel like battered and bruised over I know and starting all over again is really really hard especially we'll have to start from scratch yeah so well back to brighter things which is this episode yeah tell us the story

okay just to kind of like center ourselves back again refresher we're talking about Victorians and death, pretty much. But most of our story today is actually taking place in one of America's most famous structures, and that is the White House. So let's get familiar with it because it's kind of going to be our centralized setting. Have you been to the White House before? Like inside? Yeah. You have? I think in like eighth grade, we did a, we did a trip to we went to the Ford's Theater and then to the Peterson Boardinghouse and a lot of different big places around D.C. Very cool. And I remember. So, So it was an eighth grade trip that, you know, the eighth grade class took every year.

And traditionally, it was to New York City and Broadway. And we were so excited. We're like, oh, yeah. Like, next year is our year. Like, you know, we're going to be eighth graders soon, get to go to New York. And they changed it our year to go to D.C. And I remember our class was so pissed because we're like, they just went to go like, in our minds. We're like, they got to party in New York.

I mean, they're eighth graders. What are they really? What an eighth graders party? What's an eighth grade party look like? Yeah, but, you know, in our minds, we felt like we got robbed. And looking back on it, I'm so glad because I have had both experiences, like, in different ways. And D.C. is just more aligned with what I am interested in. Sure.

So, yeah, I happen to the White House. So the White House is managed by the National Park Service. And it's actually part of a national park unit called President's Park. The park is the oldest federal reservation in the nation, but was designated as a national park site unit in 1933. Located in downtown Washington, D.C., president's park is about 77 acres in size and preserves areas around the White House

such as Lafayette Square, the ellipsee, the Treasury Building, and of course, the White Building, the White House structure itself. And it didn't always go by that name, the White House, and it didn't always look the way it does today. At various times throughout history, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has gone by President's Palace. the president's house and the executive mansion.

And it wasn't until 1901 when it was dubbed the White House by Teddy Roosevelt. President George Washington selected an Irish architect to design the White House, but the original laborers and stonecutters who helped actually construct the building and the surrounding area and its grounds were immigrants and enslaved African Americans. And the first cornerstone was laid in 1792 while George Washington oversaw the construction, but he actually never lived there because it took so long to build. It wasn't until 1800 when the White House was nearly completed when President John Adams and First Lady Abigail Adams moved in.

About 14 years later, in 1814, it came under attack and was pretty much set a blaze and torched. The White House was? Yeah, by the British Army. Wow. I didn't know that. Yeah, it was, it had to be evacuated. The Adams had to leave. and most of the inside was wrecked.

And the exterior walls withstood the attack, but they were pretty weakened and much of the original structure was completely compromised. So like I said, they had to evacuate. No one could live in it while it was being renovated. And it reopened two years later. And ever since then, the building has undergone constant changes, renovations, revisions, additions by different architects, and its residents throughout history.

For example, the bigger things were the, addition of the West Wing, an entire second story, and a massive extensive interior redecoration. Is it true? They have secret rooms in the basement or whatever they have like the bunkers. From what I hear. I was trying to not go down like the rabbit hole with the White House because I'm like, okay, this is just the setting. We don't need to go into like the whole history of the White House. I just think of that movie Olympus. I think it's Olympus has fallen that has Gerard Butler and they attack the White House and the president goes into the bunker in the basement while all hell is breaking loose like above ground. Well, if you think about it, there has to be some sort of safe room.

Yeah, safe room, safe room, safe space for the president. Pineapple. Pineapple. So one of the most fascinating redecoration stories I read because this is like, I was like, oh my God, they redecorate like every president redecorates. I did know that. In my mind, I'm just like, it's just the way it is. Like, you just move in and you live there and it looks the same as it's looked for hundreds and hundreds of years. But you get to be the president and you add your own style to it. Your flare.

And I picked this guy because he reminded me of you. Okay. Okay. Now I'm skeptical. Okay. So President Chester Arthur, who took over office after the assassination of James Garfield, he is the one that I was like, okay, this is totally, if Cassie was president, this is what would have happened.

This is me. So he was kind of remembered as like a high maintenance president. And when he arrived at the White House to assume the presidency, he was given a tour. He was looking around. And then he just stopped and said, I will not live in a house like this. So he went on to hire the country's star interior designer at the time. which was Louis Tiffany, as in like Tiffany and company. Oh, wow.

And he had the entire White House redesigned by Mr. Tiffany into this like elaborate over-the-top spectacle. And that's an extreme example. I mean, if you look up pictures of like Tiffany Renovations White House, it's amazing. It looks like an art gallery. Like it's just so interesting. And so that's an extreme example. Cassie's like, okay, pause, I'm going to. Let me see.

There's like all this stain, obviously the stained glass that he's really renowned for, but everything was over the top, really beautiful and elegant. He just had style. And it reminded you of me? Yeah, well, you're renovating your house now and I just feel like, you're like, I can't live like this. I can't live like this. I have to fix this. That's true. I wow, it is really pretty.

So, yeah, that's definitely an extreme example. But Congress actually allocates allowances to each new president for the purpose of. of pure redecoration. And the fund has risen over time, obviously, due to inflation. It was around $14,000 and now it's about $100,000 that they give each new presidential family. And many of the families will utilize this to replace wallpaper, curtains, rugs, or furniture in various rooms out of the 132 rooms that the White House has. That's kind of a lot of pressure. They're like, all right, you're the president and your first job is to renovate the White House. You have 132 rooms. I mean, like, what? You're not doing every 100, every single one.

Like, redesign all this to your style. Like, okay. I feel like that goes quick. A hundred thousand dollars? 132 rooms. A hundred thousand dollars, yeah, but 132 rooms, that's a lot. It is a lot. Yeah. And while every one of the 132 rooms have their own stories to share, there is one in particular that we are going to visit. today and that is the red room and for any 50 shades of gray people it's not like that i was like hold on a second i'm like that's my kind of room but we are not it's i mean maybe have their own red room maybe who knows we don't officially we do not know if the red room was ever used for that type of purpose so sorry to disappoint but we do know that it served as a place for communication with the dead even presidents and the upper crust of society weren't above getting down with some spiritualism. And there's a lot of

breakdown here. So let's start with the room itself, which is the red room, just so you can get, you know, now we're in the White House, now we're into the room. We're going to sit down and have a seance. The red room itself is small. It's about 28 by 22 feet. And it is one of three state parlor on the state floor of the White House. It has served many different purposes, depending on the time and the president. For a time, it served as the president's antechamber, which is basically just a small room that leads to a bigger room. And in that case, there was the president's office in the cabinet room next door. So it was kind of just like a little lobby that they would use before going in. So it's the Oval Office and then the Seance Room. I feel like I don't have a good understanding

of the layout of the White House, but kind of. That's what I'm imagining. Like, put this next to the Oval Office. It's important. In the early 1800s, the room became first lady Dolly Madison's famous salon where visitors were received in her famous Wednesday night receptions. And interestingly, at that time, the room was sunflower yellow because it wasn't known as the red room yet. Oh, I like sunflower yellow. It served as a small sitting room or to host smaller dinner parties. And then it wasn't until 1845 when the Washington room, as it was known back then, became known as the red room with a redecoration theme that just kind of stuck despite the changing uses that it continued to undergo.

Rutherford B. Hayes was sworn in here. It was decorated with elaborate shimmering gold ceiling stars by Mr. Tiffany. It was turned into a music chamber at one point in time, complete with a piano and different guitars. The walls were turned red and covered by red satin fabric with gold detailing. The furniture is upholstered in red silk. The carpet is red, beige, and gold. There's elegant French carved gilded wood chandeliers that hang from the ceiling,

and there are painted portraits of the presidents and their wives hanging amongst other artwork. This sounds like the 50 shades agree. It's like the couch is lined in silk and there's red and gold on the walls. It's like and there's handcuffs hanging from the ceiling. And the carpet is just so fluffy and comfortable to lay on. On the White House history page where I got a lot of this information from, it's so interesting because there's a ton of different articles. It's a very extensive library of information, of course.

And regarding the Red Room, they had a bunch of information about, like, all the different presidents and how they styled it and what it was used for and this and that and everything. Super detailed. And then it says, quote, President Abraham Lincoln and First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln frequently used the space for informal entertaining. End of story. That was it in that particular article. And I was like, informal.

entertaining. Period. Like, end of story. Like swinger parties. No. That is the first informal entertainment I think of. Well, husband and life informal. Or we're talking about seances. Yeah. The informal entertaining that they did were seances. Okay. Different. Yep. A little different. Yeah. And that brings us to spiritualism, which is a giant topic in and of itself, but I'm going to do my best to summarize. At its core, spiritual, is referred to as not really an organized religion, but rather a philosophy or way of life that holds the belief that we all possess souls that are part of a larger, universal, spirit,

or greater, higher power. The soul does not die, and after bodily death, continues on to another realm, world, dimension, whatever you want to call it, and, and this is most important, it is possible to communicate with departed souls through mediums. The spiritualism moved doesn't hold strong to any doctrines, dogmas, or authoritative, or formal systems. And in fact, many people who ascribe to organized religions also hold spiritualist beliefs, beliefs simultaneously. So it's not like, I am a spiritualist, period. It's like, I believe in spiritualism, and I'm also a Buddhist Christian, whatever. You know what I mean? Whatever religion, yeah. Yep. And today, there are historic spiritualist camps where thousands of

people flock every year, which I'll go into a little more later. There are hundreds of spiritualist churches throughout the world with about a hundred or so here in the United States and plenty of people who have confidence in this belief system. But let me tell you, this does not hold a candle to the Victorian era. The dawn of spiritualism can be traced back to the works of a man named Emmanuel Swedenborg. Born in 1688, Swedenborg was a Swedish philosopher in a science Growing up, his life was pretty firmly planted in the sciences. He studied mathematics, geography, astronomy, anatomy, and physiology, and mechanics at university and beyond.

In his 50s, though, he became increasingly interested in spiritual matters and underwent a sort of spiritual awakening. He was determined to find a scientific theory that would explain how matter related to spirit and began experiencing intense visions and dreams. and just became obsessed with this notion. He dedicated the rest of his life to the pursuit of understanding what the spirit is,

where it comes from, and where it goes, even publishing books about the afterlife and beings that live on other planets, all in the 1700s. So he was like, really getting into kind of uncharted territory for the times. His works were widely read after his death, and they and his non-traditional views on religion

were highly regarded by poets, writers, theologists, and mystics, soon after his death and beyond. However, spiritualism as a movement really took off in Britain and America during the 19th century, and although around and in practice prior to the civil war, it really spiked during that time. The bloodiest conflict in the nation's history resulted in approximately 750,000 American fatalities. Never before had the country experienced death like this. In many cases, death during this time inhibited traditional mourning practices, making it extremely difficult for bereaved loved ones to move through grief. There was often unavailable or incorrect information about deaths, loved ones dying far from home,

and the lack of a structured recovery systems sometimes resulted in bodies returning home for burial months or years later, or sometimes never at all. And we did an episode on this with two girls, one ghost, for people who went over to their feed to listen to that because we did part two was on our feed. But we covered a couple stories on their feed and I covered this topic, basically how the Civil War drastically reshaped how Americans dealt with death and dying. And it was one of my favorite topics to research. Like to this day, it's always been a big interest of mine and being able to research it formally was really interesting. So it was really, it was an interesting topic that you covered too because you just went so much into how crazy. It really was what people were doing for families who had lost someone. I mean, a lot of times you were talking in that episode, people didn't even know.

And yeah, I was just definitely one to go listen to. Yeah. That's something you're interested in. Like, because this is kind of, in my mind, a part two to that story because that was kind of about how the Civil War really was a turning point for how Americans dealt with death and dying. Mm-hmm. But this is kind of how that same time period also transformed how Americans grieved.

And it turned many towards seances to find peace and quote unquote closure with the help of a medium. This central figure, the medium, during a seance, worked in a variety of different ways to channel the souls of the deceased. That included table tipping, trances, acts of levitation, creating ectoplasm, automatic writing, spirit boards, and spirit photography, just to name a few. And it's also really important to note that for a time, spiritualism was one of the only ways women were allowed to speak in public. For the first time in American history, women could regularly serve as religious leaders because the vast majority of mediums were female. And we've always been so smart because they used this platform as a way to champion the ideas of women's suffrage, equal rights, and the abolition of slavery, claiming that these

weren't their ideas. They were coming from from spirit. They're just the, they're just the translators. They're like, don't listen to me. I'm a stupid woman, but I'm communicating with the higher power here. And this is what they're relaying through me. Yep. That's wild. And there's a whole interesting story on that, you know, subject on that. And there's tons of books written about that. It's really interesting. And of course, this brought on an onslaught of backlash and fueled criticism for, female spiritualist and spiritualism as a whole, which is a whole another problem we'll kind of get into. I'm like this kind of is bringing like witchy vibes to me.

Like she's a witch. Yeah. Or like she's a witch or like the whole thing is just fraud. Like it's fake. Yeah. You know. So it's complex and we'll kind of get into it a little bit. But I just thought it was an interesting way in which we kind of snuck our beliefs.

It's like, well, this is the only way you're going to listen to me. So here we go. Yeah. And there was one example of a woman. Her name was Victoria Woodhull, and she was a vocal spiritualist and the first woman to ever run for president. She was dubbed Mrs. Satan for her beliefs in spiritualism, suffrage and the ideas of free love, all of which were seen as a threat to traditional morals. Mrs. Satan, I believe in everyone loving whoever they want and common decency. And they're like, Mrs. Satan. Remember, I don't know if you remember this, I do from U.S. history, but they would show a lot of, like, at the time the media was, because photography wasn't a big accessible thing at the time, they would do like the political cartoons in the papers and stuff. Yeah. And there's a bunch of her being made fun of called Mrs. Satan, like basically calling her like a witch and dragging her name through the mud because of things like this, along with other things obviously. But yeah. So if you're interested in her story, it's a, it's a very intriguing one. Despite all the criticism, spiritualism was all the rage. By the 1890s, followers numbered nearly 8 million throughout the United States and Europe. In the span of four decades, a new book about spiritualism was published once a week,

and more than 100 American spiritualism periodicals were in regular rotation and circulation that would advertise public lectures and private seances in nearly 800 cities and towns throughout our country. But this wasn't just for the everyday person. Nicola Tesla and Thomas Edison both dabbled with technology to make what would later be coined a spirit phone. Edison told the American magazine, quote, I have been at work for some time building an apparatus

to see if it is possible for personalities which have left this earth to communicate with us. Alfred Wallace, Mark Twain, Marie Curie, Thomas Edison, Queen Victoria, and Arthur Conan Doyle were all amongst the more well, known spiritualists, and that brings us to Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln and the Red Room. And while Abraham Lincoln was involved, it was really his wife, Mary, who is at the center of this entire story.

Mary Todd was born December 13th, 1818, a Sagittarius, in Lexington, Kentucky, the fourth of seven children. Her mother died when Mary was only seven, and her father went on to remarry, which wound up bringing nine more kids into the family. Her father believed that women should be well, And as a result, Mary received a quote-unquote unusual education for the time. She went to several different private academies where she studied grammar, geography, arithmetic, poetry, foreign languages, dance, drama, music, and literature. She later moved to Springfield, Illinois, to live with one of her sisters when she was about 21. Three years later, she had married Abraham Lincoln after they first met at a dance. And interestingly, Mary's father and stepmother did not approve.

of their relationship, perhaps because of Abe's comparatively low income and less rounded background compared to Mary, which is so interesting to think, because we know him as like the president, one of the greatest presidents, you know, like, remembered in history. So, but back then he was just kind of climbing the political ladder and he didn't come from as affluent as a background as Mary did. So they kind of were like, are you sure? Peasant. Yeah, they were like, no, I don't know. But despite that, Mary was really into him.

And they had some problems when they first got engaged after their initial engagement. Abraham actually requested that Mary release him from their engagement. But they rekindled things, got things back on track, and got married. He had to request to be released from his engagement to her. He's like, please. I don't know if I want to do this. And she's like, no. I'm sorry.

We're committed now. And from what I gather, it was from pressure from her family. He maybe was kind of feeling like maybe not good enough or just like a lot of pressure or he didn't like the family and he's like, I don't know if I want to, I want to marry into this. And she's like, well, too bad. She wanted to. I'm denying your request for release. She's like, okay, I guess I'm in it. Yeah. So Abraham Lincoln historians don't come for me. That's just what I gathered from what I can understand. But they went on to have four sons, Robert Edward, William, who went by Willie, and Thomas, who went by Tad. And as Abe climbed the political ladder, her father died, as well as her second oldest son, Edward, who was just three or four at the time. There's a couple different sources that say either three or four. So she lost her dad and her son.

And of course, it wasn't her first brush with death because, like I said, her mother had died when she was a child. But this hit a lot differently for her. Of course, she lost her child, which is a different loss. And she was so distraught. She was unable to attend her son's funeral. It was too emotionally overwhelming for her. But despite her grief, she continued to support her husband's career.

She gave up the ease and privilege that came with her life before she had met Abraham. And she hosted various political parties and social events for different political allies at their home. She essentially became his hype woman for the press while he was, you know, getting higher and higher up in the political world, all while doing the household labor. raising the children and grieving. You know, she was doing the most. That's a lot, yeah. And when Abe became president, they and their two sons, Willie and Tad, moved into the White House.

So just to recap, Edward had passed away. And Robert was the oldest child and he was just no longer living with them. So it was just them and their two sons. Almost right away, Mary received some public scrutiny almost immediately. Due to wear and tear issues, she began redecorating and replacing some of the furnishings in the White House, which included purchasing new furniture and recarpeting some areas. And like we previously went over, this is normal. This is not anything new.

But the media were down her throat immediately because they were accusing her of wasteful and lavish spending during the time of the war, which made it seem like it was unnecessary spending. Like how could you be doing this when we're fighting a civil war? Despite the fact that she repeatedly, generously gave Monty. Contributions and personal contributions to various efforts associated with the war to different soldiers' hospitals and different like efforts for getting soldiers back on their feet and reacclimating and all of that. So it doesn't matter how much she did. They were like, yeah, but you bought new couches.

She just wants to be comfortable while she's saving the world. Give her a break. Right. Right. She was also bullied by the press regarding her personal appearance. As many media accounts of her described her as quote, plump and plain. All comes down to looks for women, right? It doesn't matter their brains or what they do. It's just what they look like that matters. Yep. So crazy. Even everything that she wore was scrutinized. And when she spoke her mind on political matters, she came across as, quote, too forceful. So she was given a hard time, essentially, all around. Yeah. Just because she was a woman, because if she was a man saying these things, they would have said that he was assertive and knew what he wanted. And, And there's just there's different terms for women for the same characteristics as men. Tragedy struck the Lincoln family again in early 1862 when William and Thomas contracted typhoid fever. While Thomas luckily survived, William, who was 11 at the time and considered the family favorite, passed away. The entire White House went into mourning and was draped in black fabrics to reflect that. To say that Mary was devastated would be a vast understatement.

While her son's funeral took place in the East Room, she couldn't bring herself to attend. One of her friends wrote of Mary during this time saying, quote, Mrs. Lincoln's grief was inconsolable. The pale face of her dead boy threw her into convulsions. She retreated to her bed for weeks following his death and remained inconsolable after she emerged in morning black. Abe was also grief-stricken and, according to staff at the White House, retreated to the green room every Thursday, a routine that emerged after his stay. son Willie had died on a Thursday. He put a broad black ribbon around his trademark stovepipe hat

in his son's memory, and that ribbon was still there when he was murdered three years later. It was amidst this grief when Mary began leaning into spiritualism and what mediums could offer her in the ways of comfort. Soon after the passing of William, she was introduced to a group of mediums based in Georgetown, mainly Margaret Laurie and her daughter, Belle Miller. She felt so much comfort in attending each session that the group went on to assist her by holding her own seances in the red room of the White House in hopes of contacting her dead son. Mary became convinced that William came through during some of the seances, and those experiences provided her with momentary reprieve from her grief.

One night, she even rushed into her half-sister's room, exclaiming, he lives, Emily. He comes to me every night and stands at the foot of my bed with the same, sweet, adorable smile he always had. You cannot dream of the comfort that this gives me. And of course, she was referencing William and even went on to say that sometimes when he did appear, he would bring along his brother Edward, her other deceased son. Mary hosted as many as eight seances that we know of within the walls of the red room, with Abe being in attendance to at least a few of them. And while we can look back on that as perhaps being maybe a supportive husband, just being there for his wife, like, I'm here for you. If this is what's making you feel better, I will comfort you.

And maybe he wanted to be there just out of curiosity as a grieving parent himself. Because he lost kids too. Yes, right. But he may have had some sort of belief in what he was witnessing that lasted longer than just comfort and grief. In December of 1862, Mary hired a medium named Nettie Colburn Maynard, whom she had gotten to know in Georgetown to speak to Abe. And Abe asked through Nettie for guidance pertaining to the Emancipation Proclamation, which he had plans to issue in the upcoming months, but was the source of a big division amongst his cabinet. Thankfully, over an hour of channeling, Nettie spoke of the importance of issuing and enforcing it, as it would be the crowning achievement of his administration and of his life. And she advised him that he should ignore the cabinet advisors who are in opposition of it. So really, she ended. She created.

Well, it's like, women never get the credit they deserve. It's so interesting because she went on to write a memoir called Was Abraham Lincoln a spiritualist? And in it, she says of that particular session after she regained consciousness from coming out of her trance, her hour-long trance of speaking with spirit, she says, quote, he turned to me and laying his hand upon my head uttered these words in a manner that I shall never. forget. He said, my child, you possess a very singular gift, but that it is of God. I have no doubt. I thank you for coming here tonight. It is more important perhaps anyone present could ever understand. According to Susan Martinez book, The Psychic Life of Abraham Lincoln, this was one of many occasions that Mr. Lincoln in particular requested Nettie's services. He went on to consult her regarding various planning strategies for the war, the aftermath of the war, and various

different political decisions. And to me, when I was researching this, I see perfectly shown with Mary Lincoln and Abraham Lincoln the two main reasons that people go to mediums. It doesn't matter if it's today or 200 years ago or beyond. There are usually two camps, and I'm speaking from personal experience here, okay? So there's generally two camps that people fall into when they're seeking out the assistance of a medium. They're either seeking comfort during grief or advice on what path they should take forward.

Like that's generally it. It's like, what should I do with my life? Where am I going? Or I need to talk with someone that has died because I'm sad. That's generally the two camps. And like that's what they were doing, you know? And they did it a lot. I just think it's so cool that this is happening in the White House.

I know. I know. You hear about this all the time in other circumstances, especially if you're interested in this type of mediumship and things like that. But to know that this is going down in the White House, it's like, oh, okay. Okay. And I also think it's so important to, or not important, but interesting to point out that, you know, yeah, it had its problems back then and certainly today as well, as far as fraud and hoaxes and people taking advantage of people in grief, which was a big thing that we kind of touch on. But this wasn't just for like, I feel like, and I'm also speaking from

experience. But people look at people who go to mediums or healers or kind of like woo-woo stuff, quote unquote, kind of like with a side eye. Like, okay, whatever, like looney tune. But these were people, this was the fucking president in the United States and so many other notable, intelligent leaders, scientists, people of notoriety that are all interested in this for a reason. So it's applicable to everyone, like this general belief or curiosity at the very minimum. I think it's just, it's so interesting because it doesn't matter where you're from, what time you're from, what's happening. Like, it's kind of intriguing to everyone. And it's been going on clearly for a very long time. This isn't a new practice. Right. Exactly.

And Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln, of course, set out mediums for both things, for grief and for guidance. And not only with Nettie, but with several other mediums throughout time. And I just want to say, as far as Nettie goes, she was in her late teens and early 20s at the time of her seances with the Lincolns. Oh, wow. And she was advising him. I was picturing an old woman for some reason. An old wise woman. No. She was young. And I'm not saying, like, I don't know enough about her and her story. I'm not saying that she was making anything up. And it was really just her thoughts on advising the president and war strategies and different things like that. Like maybe she was channeling some sort of spirit.

The president took war strategies from a 16-year-old during a seance. Okay. I'm just saying it could go either way. That's all I'm saying. Just saying really look at history. And it's so crazy because allegedly, the validity of Abe's true intentions behind the seances, these different sessions, is still in question today by different historians. And some people think it was genuine.

and others think that it was a publicity stunt to make him appear as an everyday man. Because that's how popular seances were at the time. They were like, presidents, they're just like us. Look at them doing seances. You know, like kind of gaining public support. I feel like if that were to happen today, not that I have anything against seances, but I feel like if that would happen today, total opposite, people would be like, okay, this person needs mental help or get them out of the office.

they're making decisions based on it in the red room who knows what's going on there from spirit or whatever from spirits yeah isn't that just so interesting like the way oh how the tables have turned the tags have turned public opinion has turned and it's just wild oh how times have changed and we know that abe would be gunned down in ford's theater in april of 1865 but what you may not know is that it is largely believed that he was having premonitions of his own death. While he was quoted as saying, I do not believe it is my fate to die in this way regarding assassination in particular, in the weeks and months leading up to the spring of 1865, he was still having some intense dreams and pretty strong feelings about death.

Wardhill Lamon, a former law partner and a friend of Abes, told a now famous story of the president's premonition. According to his account, which he published about two decades after Abes' assassination. A few days before the incident, Abe shared a dream with a small group of people that included him, Ward, and Mary. In the dream, Abe walked into the eastern of the White House to find a covered corpse guarded by soldiers surrounded by a crowd of mourners. When Lincoln turned to one of the soldiers and asked him who had died, the soldier replied, the president. He was killed by an assassin. Then on the actual mourning of his death, members of Lincoln's cabinet recalled that Abe had told them he had dreamt a dreamt a dream that he had had on occasion before,

but only occasions before nearly every great and important event of the war. And in this dream, he was out of his body, sailing across an unknown body of water at a great speed. On another occasion, while he was away from his family, he wrote to marry, put Tad's gun away. I had an ugly dream about him. So although this isn't saying, like, yes, he predicted his death, he does. he definitely like especially that last thing he was like hey I had a weird dream like you should probably put the gun away so our son can't access it and then he was like telling people about the dreams he was having his subconscious was doing something it was warning him of something and it also

shows that he at least considered what dreams meant in real life like if there was any indication of meaning like you know what I mean sure he's not not just like, oh, this is a dream. He's like, oh, this scared me a little bit. Yeah, like, it's interesting enough. I have a bad feeling. It's interesting enough to share with other people. You know, that's how severely it was affecting him type of thing or significantly it was affecting him. So he definitely had put some weight into maybe the meaning of dreams. So maybe it's not like he protected his own death, but something was up with his dreams. And then lastly, on the actual night that he made his trip to the Ford's Theater, Lincoln told his body,

bodyguard William Crook about having the dream for three days straight about like his soul leaving his body and sailing across this unknown body of water just like kind of out of body experience dreams. And then when he was leaving the White House, he said goodbye to him instead of his characteristic good night. And that always stuck with William Crook because of course a few hours later, he was brutally assassinated, sitting mere inches from his wife, Mary, who witnessed everything. She was so distraught. She was removed from the room in the Peterson family boarding house that he was brought to

in his final moments. And she was unable to be present at any of his funeral processions in the aftermath of his death. That's so sad. Understandably, she plunged deeper into a profound struggle with grief and depression. And, in my opinion, pretty unfairly fueled. rumors of her unstable mental health. And she was painted in the press at first as America's most famous widow, but then ultimately

to a woman merely seeking attention. What? Yeah. She's seeking attention because she's in severe grief. That is what the media was brutal. I mean, I guess they always have been. They have been for sure. Just in different ways.

But yeah, they were brutal against her. And following her husband's death, through her grief, she received and attempted to personally answer messages of condolences from around the world. Because Abraham obviously was a very beloved president at the time. And of course, even though a lot of people gave her a lot of flack, they still sympathized with her, you know, for losing a husband. And obviously people felt. And in that way. In that way. And, you know, people felt personally, it's like a collective grief moment. You know, people loved him. And there was one response that she gave to Queen Victoria that I thought was so heartwarming, essentially.

So Queen Victoria sent her letter because Queen Victoria's husband also had passed, and Queen Victoria was also into seances to try and reach Prince Albert and things like that. And she sent her a condolence message. And Mary responded with, quote, I have received the letter which your majesty has had the kindness to write. I am deeply grateful for this expression of tender sympathy coming as. they do from a heart which from its own sorrow can appreciate the intense grief that I now endure. So basically like, I know you know how this feels and thank you for saying something.

I'm just recognizing it. That's really nice. Mary was permitted to stay in the White House, but after six weeks after being almost completely bedridden, she moved out and onwards towards Chicago. In a letter to a friend right before she left Washington, she said, quote, I go hence broken-hearted with every hope almost in life crushed. So I just like feel for her so bad. Like this lady has gone through a lot and it's about to get worse. So when she was in, when she was in Chicago, she struggled to pay off her debts, even receiving public ridicule,

here we go again, for attempting to sell her dresses in order to make some money. And she had to fight tooth and nail for a widow's pension. She finally won it, but she had to really fight for it. Even after having her husband so publicly executed beside her, she had to fight for a widow's pension of the president. Yes, correct. That's wild. Piling on to the misery in July of 1871, another one of her sons, Thomas, passed away at the age of 18, likely from tuberculosis. So to recap, Mary has now lost her mother, father, husband, three of her half brothers, which I didn't talk about but they died in the war, and now three of her sons. She says, one by one, I have consigned to their resting place, my idolized ones, and now in this world, there is nothing

left for me but the deepest anguish and desolation. It's kind of no wonder that Mary now leaned much deeper and farther into spiritualism for comfort, seeking out at the time the famous, and later revealed as a fraud, spirit photographer named William H. Mulmer. And there's a very famous photo that he took that you can Google right now. I'll post it as well. And it's supposed to be a spirit photo. So Mary's sitting there for a portrait. It looks like she's just sitting there. And then there's like allegedly Abraham is like leaning over her shoulder a little bit. And looking at it today, clearly you're like, yeah, no shit. This is a hoax. Like this is the fakes thing I've ever seen. But at the time, people really believed him. Yeah. Do you see it? Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. It's pretty bad.

It's literally like a, what is that, like a drawing of him behind her? I think it was like a double, what is it, a double negative or like a, the first Photoshop ever. Yeah, or double exposure, like what, I don't know the terms in for time. Yeah, like an overlay, overlaying two photos. Yeah, so at the time, obviously people saw a lot of comfort in spirit photography before it was revealed as like not fake, not real. but so for her it provided her another kind of like avenue of comfort in some way.

And she also tried to secretly seek out the services of the notorious Margaret Fox by traveling to Boston and signing into a hotel's registry under the name Mrs. Linder. Even disguise didn't provide her cover. The New York Times and the Boston Herald both reported on her visit with the Fox sister saying, quote, The spirit of her lamented husband appeared and by unmistakable manifestations revealed to all present the identity of Mrs. Lincoln, which she had attempted to keep secret.

And anyone who is familiar with spiritualism and its history knows that you can't speak about it without mentioning the Fox Sisters. Because Swedenborg might have been the spark, but the Fox sisters were the gasoline that ignited the spiritualism craze that, like wildfire, spread throughout the entire nation. And their story is a story of its own, but just to recap, Although there were people who genuinely believed that they could communicate with spirits, there were also many, many frauds looking to make money off of the grief-stricken.

Such scam artists were Maggie and Kate Fox. In March of 1848, they were young girls. They weren't older than 16 at the time. And they wanted to play a prank on their mom. And they basically claimed that there was a spirit communicating with them inside of their house in Heightsville, New York. They claimed that the house was haunted and the spirit was communicating with them. and it was doing so through like wraps and knocks on the walls and the floors. Their mother tested the spirit that they had dubbed Mr. Splitfoot asking a series of questions.

For example, how many children do I have? And then it would knock like the answer, just like different questions like that. And it kept giving correct answers. So she's like, oh my God, it's on it. And when the sisters moved out of the home, their ability to connect with deceased people followed them. When the supernatural occurrences continued, word spread of the sister's ability and neighbors apparently began witnessing the phenomenon for themselves. So now word was spreading, people were interested, they wanted to see what was happening, and within months, they demonstrated their powers in front of their first ever paying crowd. They went on to become famous, going into adulthood, making full-blown careers out of charging for performing public demonstrations, traveling the country, and sitting for notable clients, such as Mrs. Lincoln.

While they had thousands of followers, they also had a hefty number of critics. The practice of mediumship was particularly susceptible to fraud, and there were many scandals surrounding mediums, including them. Hoaxes were exposed frequently, and there were many, many people who were named spiritualism skeptics who attempted to expose fake mediums. And some of those skeptics, including Harry Houdini, dedicated their lives to debunking fake mediums, like made it their life's purpose. That's quite a job to enroll in. It's like I am determined to find out that you're lying. Well, I kind of like at first, because I've heard of this before. Obviously, I love spiritualism and mediums and I've done a lot of my own just research on it for personal interests. And yeah, I know the story of Harry Houdini and people like him. And at first, I was like kind of like,

that's very annoying. Like don't shit on anybody else's parade. Like, let him do it. They're want to do. But then, like, I get it now, like, now that I'm older, and I have a more thorough understanding because it is awful. It's like the lowest of the low to do people who are already in emotionally vulnerable situations and you're taking advantage of them and lying to them and making money off of them. Yeah. You're exploiting their grief. Exactly. Exactly. So I totally understand now. I do think it's an interesting job to get into still, though. Like, you are invested in figuring out if this person is a fraud or not. And I just feel like the ways that you go about that would be so creative and interesting. You know what I mean? Like how do you go about deciding

if this person is a fraud or not? You probably have to do some undercover work there. You have to figure out some stuff. I mean, it's an interesting career path. Well, you have to go to tons of different seances yourself. Witness it. And put people through the ringer of like different types of tests and things like that. Yeah, it's, it's all wild. But through that, a lot of people got exposed, I bet. And while the Fox sisters didn't get exposed through Harry Houdini or anybody else, it was actually Maggie, who ultimately did it on her own. In 1888, a full four decades after their career started, a full 40 years later, she confessed to the media that her and her sister's communication with the dead had all been fake all along. Going on to explain and then going

on to demonstrate for a crowd how the wrapping noises were manipulations of their own bodies, including cracking their joints. Like they had like weird ways they could like crack their toes and their joints and their like muscles and their legs and their knees and their body parts to. They were just using that to. Yeah. So mediums would like I kind of said earlier, they did a lot of different things to channel spirit. And in the Fox sisters case, they basically would just have people ask or.

they would ask questions that could be responded to with like one knock for yes, two for no type of thing. You know what I mean? And that's how they got this whole, which is like would never fly nowadays, obviously. No. I have one experience. I wasn't seeing a medium. I was going to like a, like those psychic readings you walk in and they like read your future and tell you about your personality and whatever. And my friend and I walked in and I forget for what reason that day, but I was like kind of dressed up and she was wearing like normal wear that you would like she looked like she was ready to go for a hike or something and we walk in and she reads us off of our outfits and you could it was so blatantly obvious and she kept saying do you resonate with that does that make

sense to you and I was just like uh-huh sure because I walked in and she I remember I was wearing like I looked very put together which I normally don't and I think I was going to like a nice dinner or something, but she was like, you're a type A personality. You like to get stuff done. You're not spontaneous. You want to control things and you don't like to go to things unplanned, very type A organized. And I was just like, and then she looks at my friend and she's like, you're a free spirit. You like to travel. You do all the stuff. And she was wearing like, I don't know, like a traveling shirt and it had like some other state on it or something like this girl is reading us based on our outfits right now there's no way she's doing anything else than that yeah and that's like

it's just the sad reality that mixed in with maybe some genuine like people who have special gifts is that and you know that's kind of what people less 60 bucks that day I told her it was great spot on I was going to say it seems like you went along with it and she to this day think she was right. Yeah. I couldn't, I didn't know how to say how wrong she was because I felt like it would have been awkward. I will say, yeah, I will say the only, so when I, my, one of my first medium sessions I ever had was right after my dad did. It was probably too soon ago, like, because it was my first, like, close death. I was, it was not the time. It was just not the vibe. Yeah. But I went and in person and I just remember her saying like maybe like, maybe like,

three or four wrong things kind of right off the bat and it just put me in such an emotional like I was angry you know because it wasn't like you're reading my food because you felt like she was fake yeah and I'm like you're saying that you're channeling my deceased father and you're just making shit up and it just I got up and left I was crying I'm like I can't do this anymore like I paid her obviously like I had prepaid but yeah I was just like I can't do this like you're not none of this is accurate. And you said that. Yeah.

I'm like, none of this is accurate. You're clearly not communicate. If you're communicating with anyone, it's certainly not my father. And I just cannot be a part of this anymore. It's like really upsetting me. And I left. What'd she say? I honestly don't remember.

I would be making it up if I said something. I really don't remember. I was just so distraught. Yeah. Yeah. It's awful. That's an awful experience. Yeah.

And like I didn't get the vibe that she was just a complete fraud, like just pulling shit out of her ass. I think she thought she was saying something real. I don't know. I don't know. Whatever. It was also in like 2000 and, God, 14. Like it was a really, it was almost 10 years ago.

Yeah. That I did that. So anyway. Actually, whoa. Whoa. No. My dad died in 2009. So it was 2010 because it was like a year after he died.

Okay. So 13. Yeah. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Original. have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen

favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. Back to Margaret Fox. So after she demonstrated that to the fake, she kind of let everything out in the open, She did say to the crowd during that confession, when I began this deception, I was too young to know right from wrong, that I had been mainly instrumental in perpetuating the fraud of spiritualism upon a too confiding public, many of you already know. It is the greatest sorrow of my life.

So she, like, says all this, says it was all fraud. And then a year later, she recanted her confession. And she did attempt to continue her medium practice, which obviously didn't go over well. And her and her sister actually had like a lot of they went like they became alcoholics. It was a whole thing. They had a really awful end of life. But they duped a lot of people for many, many, many years. And yeah, so the Fox sisters and spiritualism, at least the spread of spiritualism kind of go hand in hand.

So I had to mention them, especially because Mrs. Lincoln sought out their services. Sure. And along with concerns regarding the validity of mediums was growing concerns for Mary's well-being. Emily, Mary's half-sister, grew especially alarmed after Mary confided in her that she was seeing her dead son's apparition at the foot of her bed. Emily wrote in her journal of Mary's behavior, quote, it is unnatural and abnormal. It frightens me. In 1875, her only surviving son, Robert, instigated a jury trial to determine his mother's sanity. Mary did not realize that there was a public trial coming her way and was forcibly taken to the courthouse in May of 18.

1875. Isaac Arnold, a family friend who reluctantly became her defense attorney, did not contest the case at all, allowed 17 different witnesses to testify to her unstable mental condition, and never called any witnesses of his own. So basically, she had no defense, formal defense in any sort of way. It was just this complete surprise onslaught of people calling her, quote unquote, insane. And during the trial, Robert, the, only surviving son who brought this whole thing testified, quote, I have no doubt my mother is insane. She has long been a source of great anxiety to me. And that seems a bit harsh because it is. But historians are also quick to point out that mental health issues were probably happening in the background. This wasn't just a result of depression and grief. There was maybe some other mental health concerns going on that was contributing to this. Well, this was a time where, women on their periods were experiencing hysteria. And so, you know, like, it kind of, I kind of question the validity of it anyway, because

if she's in severe grief and severe depression and she is affected by that and having symptoms of that, someone might attribute it to, it's like, this has been severe anxiety on me, her, like, debilitating depression. And it's like, okay, but like, there is an actual mental illness that's going on here. and it's not hysteria or mania or anything like that. It's just, you know, it's just back then, I think diagnosing any type of mental illness is very difficult because especially in women. Well, it's difficult, especially trying to do that now, reflecting back because all we have

is, you know, correspondence or letters or their accounts. And it's kind of like working the puzzle backwards and through different people's statements, And it's not just in this trial because that's kind of like we already know they wanted one result. It's just opinions. Yeah. And they got it. There's no experts on this. Yeah.

Yeah. So, but throughout time, she has had some things that came into question that historians are like, hmm, maybe there was something else going on. And they point to perhaps bipolar disorder. So she suffered from frequent severe headaches throughout all of her adult life and difficult bouts of depression, anxiety, and paranoia. Her husband's secretaries even nicknamed her the hellcast. which is like, I can't.

But growing up, even far before, she even knew Abe or any of this tragedy struck her life aside from her mother passing away, her peers noticed the fluctuations in her moods, observing that she was emotionally either, quote, in the garret or in the cellar. So she either had high highs or really low lows. And her mental state worsened after her husband's assassination, of course. Of course. And she disintegrated into, quote, inconsolable pathological grief and went on manic shopping sprees. That's like what the trial was arguing.

It's like, well, no shit. She just had her husband shot in the head next to her. Give her a break. I would also be manic doing manic shopping trip. I didn't see someone get shot in the head, but I saw someone pass away. And it was awful. And I have been inconsolable and probably have pathological grief as well. So sue me.

Yeah. And to make things even sadder, historians and clinicians believe aside from the profound grief and depression, as well as her probable bipolar disorder, if that's what they're thinking, Mary was likely also suffering from Tabis dorsalis, which is a slow degeneration of the nerve cells and nerve fibers that carry sensory information to the brain. And those nerves are located in the dorsal columns of the spinal cord. So she had a lot going on. She had physical health problems, probable mental health problems. She has been losing everyone, dropping like flies around her. I was going to say she didn't just lose her husband either. She's lost most of her family.

Most of her family and the only family that she had left is trying to get her committed into a mental asylum. Yeah. Doesn't want anything to do with her. It's like, okay. This poor woman. The trial resulted in the Chicago court declaring her, quote unquote, in and the verdict required Mary to be committed against her will to the state hospital for the insane,

but also gave the option for her to either stay in a private hospital or get this in Robert's home. It's like, no, why would I want to stay there? He just brought me to trial to get you all to say I'm insane. Why would I stay at his house? What? And Robert wanted that? No, so Robert's house was out. Okay.

I'm like, hold on a second. Yeah. I think they were just like giving options. Then it sounds like he's legally trying to force her to stay there. Yeah. So he, number one, she, I'm going to say right now, probably did not want to do that. But also he didn't want to because number one, he was trying to get her sent away somewhere else. But number two, she had stayed with him for a period of time. And he said that her stay caused some marital problems to arise between him and his wife.

Oh, so he was motivated to get her out. Yeah. And the day that the verdict was announced, Mary was so enraged and so upset that she attempted to end her own life. She went to the hospital's pharmacist and ordered enough laudanum to end her own life. But the pharmacist was suspicious of the order and her behavior. And he ended up giving her a placebo instead. So she took it all and then nothing happened. Mm-hmm.

She wound it up at the Belfew Place, a private upscale sanitarium in Batavia, Illinois, which is now apartment buildings. which is great. An old mental hospital. Not haunted at all. Not haunted at all. Thanks to friends and lawyers, she managed to get released less than four months later

into the custody of her sister Elizabeth. Despite going to trial again in order to regain control of her own affairs because Robert had overtaken everything, all of her finances, her state, all of that. So she went back to another trial, regained all of that. Despite all of that,

Robert persisted trying repeatedly to get Mary institutionalized. And he was unsuccessful, but while he, it was apparent that this was like something he was not going to let go of. So she left the country. She went to Europe and she ended up settling in France for several years while all of this kind of died down. I can see why this guy is coming after her. He has something very much out for her. She's like, I'm getting out of the country.

I'm not going back to an institution. Yeah. She just like didn't feel safe, really. I wouldn't. He's taking all of her assets and then trying to put. or in a mental hospital. I don't know. To me, it sounds like Robert has a pretty high motive for what he's doing. But it's interesting because she was in a lot of debt and actually part of what he was arguing in the trial was that she was squandering all of her money on mediums. Like,

she went to so many seances and so many mediums that she was like all of the money that she was getting from... How did that affect him, though? I don't know. It doesn't. So that just, it feels like a motive because if she can't spend that money. It goes beyond wanting to see your mother's mental health improve. You know what I mean? Yeah. There's something fishy there to me. Yeah.

I don't like Robert. Robert's sketchy. Robert is sketchy. But she goes to France. She's there for several years. And then she ends up coming back to the States and settling in Springfield with her sister. And her health continued to decline.

She had a lot of different issues. And she ended up passing away. likely from a stroke, although we will never know, for sure. On July 16th of 1882, at the age of 63, never recanting her beliefs on spiritualism or the afterlife, despite almost an entire lifetime of scrutiny and ridicule. She is buried next to her husband and her three sons at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield,

and she was buried with her wedding ring that's a little thin from where, but is still engraved with the words, love is eternal. As time went on with the help of, scandal after scandal, spiritualism moved out of the limelight and out of fashion. It started being viewed more and more as a Victorian-era fad. It is often sneered at or sought to be discredited rather than embraced as it once was. But, alas, all is not lost. Several spiritualist communities

still exist today, the most famous of which being Lillydale, New York, and Casadaga, Florida, both of which are on the National Register of Historic Places. They were both established in the 1800s and they serve as a haven for followers and host curious travelers. And while their popularity and population peaked during the peak of spiritualism, the majority of residents that make up each of these communities today remain psychics, energy workers, mediums, healers, and spiritualists. But anyone is welcome and actually encouraged to go visit with an open mind and an open heart. With taglines and nicknames, such as No One Dies in Lillydale and Psychic Capital of the World, respectively, it's no wonder that they continue to capture attention.

They may have historic roots, but their popularity tells of a resurgence. Each and every year, especially in the summers in Lillydale, because it's in upstate New York, and the summers is kind of like the time to visit, whereas in Casadaga, it's kind of a year-round thing. They each host visitors numbering in the hundreds of thousands collectively. who stay in renovated Victorian homes turned quaint bed and breakfasts, their streets, buildings, and practices tell of a nostalgic Victorian era, but with some changes. They acknowledge the reason so very many people come,

which is basically because people are in pain. They're in pain, they want answers, guidance, and healing, and comfort. So to work in each town as a practicing medium, you have to be registered and certified, which generally includes years of thorough training, internships and rigorous testing through a board. And this is all in place to ensure that there are no frauds, phonies, or fakes practicing in either of these communities. So you can't question the legitimacy of anyone. I mean, you can question it, but it's not like the Victorian era where it's just

like, I feel like, spirit is coming through me. Yeah, you can just say whatever you want. Right. Like these people actually have credentials behind their name. Exactly. Lillydale has two outdoor spaces that are called the Forest Temple and Inspiration Stump, where these kind of like, I hate to say the word church services, but that's kind of like the only thing I can really like relate it to. But it's not a religious ceremony. It's a spiritual one. Like for someone who grew up going to church and like going to like CCD and stuff like when I was a child, it's not the same. Not that. So just as an example of which what a service here includes is it starts with an inspirational speaker, then there's a meditation, some time for silent,

internal reflection, prayer, whatever you want to do in your own mind. And then they end it with a medium delivering messages to the crowd. And that is your service. Very cool. There's a fairy tale trail that winds through 10 acres of old growth forest dedicated to preserving nature in which so many people find comfort, healing, and connection, especially during grief. They have also started to steer away from traditional seances because the practice has historically acquired a dark and questionable reputation through the whole Victorian era. So instead, they encourage visiting mediums to come instead to have one-on-one sessions or small group gatherings versus like, it's also at a table and like chant and do table-tip it. You know what I mean? It's a little different. And Casadega is similar,

providing a quiet refuge amongst the Orlando and Daytona Beach area that it's located between. And I just think that's like, it's not funny, but it's because it was there clearly before Orlando and Daytona Beach became what they are now. Yeah. But it's just kind of like, if you look them up, they're all the, like, it's kind of frozen in time. There's no chain restaurant. There's, it looks like a postcard, each of these communities. Like Victorian era postcard is like kind of what each community has maintained. Yeah.

And then all around them is just like, or you can go get drunk on the beach in Daytona. Yeah. go to a strip club or whatever. You know what I mean? It's just kind of weird. Yeah. So their community offers more activities kind of centered around people interested in the occult in general and not just spiritualism, which is kind of more the Lillydale route. So they offer everything from medium, psychics, reading of tarot cards, crystal balls, tea leaves, palm readers, kind of like the whole gamut.

You don't have to visit New York or Florida to see that hints of spiritualism persist. In fact, I think in a way, spirituality. in many forms is actually thriving, even when belief in traditional religion is trending downwards. Reading taro. Trying to capture electronic voice phenomenon. Weiji boards, aura photography, pendulums, meditations to connect to higher consciousness, spirit drawings or photos, individual or group readings, use of astrological charts and crystals, ghost hunting programs, Reiki healing, I could literally go on and on. While some of these are categorized under new age. Almost all of these modalities have roots that stretch back hundreds, if not thousands of

years in human history. They're just a swipe away on your Instagram or on Facebook. Chances are you or someone you know have dabbled with or practiced at least one of these things. Their popularity is undeniable. And funny enough, the initial inspiration of this episode was simply to do a fun spooky episode about the ghosts inside the White House, which I have not done. Obviously, yeah, found a different route. I sure did. And I couldn't leave you hanging. So instead of making a whole story out of it, I just gave you some haunt highlights from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. So we'll end the episode with what I originally intentionally wanted to do. But tell us some spooky stories for spooky season. They're just little bullet points. So sorry if you wanted more. But I'm sure you can find another

podcast episode. No, I think this is really interesting. And we've never talked about this type of stuff on the podcast before so and I think it's relevant to Halloween too it is relevant like what is spookier than trying to communicate with dead people you know yeah and it's very much surrounded around day of the dead di de los Martos you know um Halloween is very much all hallows eve the day that the dead can come back to the living world and it's very it's cohesive it's relevant and it is I think the reason I kind of steered away from it for a while even though like I'm personally interested in it is because number one, I didn't know if I could tie it to a national park. Everything.

Everything happens in a national park, I swear. So that was the first kind of roadblock. But the second thing, which I was more reluctant about, is we try and steer away from discussing anything religious, political. You know, like this is supposed to be kind of like, obviously we have our opinions and we make them known. but like we don't make them topics of discussion solely and I just didn't want to make an episode where people would be turned off because they think it's like religious and yeah it's definitely not religious though I mean we didn't really discuss religion or or say beliefs and specific religions or things that aren't real and certain you know it just kind of spirituality kind of coincides with

religion yeah and then like I was thinking about it and I'm like you know what I don't care I want to talk about it so if it's not your cap of deal. It's not your cup of tea, but for a lot of people it is. Yeah. Okay, so the ghosts. Yeah, tell us the ghosts. First up, in the late 1800s, a policeman was making his rounds, walking around the grounds, when he saw a light coming from the greenhouse area.

Upon going to investigate, he saw a, quote, tall, beautiful lady dressed in the fashion of the early 19th century. He started to speak to her until she vanished with a musical laugh. A month later, the same description of a light appeared in the same place. And a guard, a different person, went to go check in on it. While he was alone, he felt a rush of cold air and a slight touch on his shoulder. And when he turned, he saw the same woman that was described by the policeman. And then he passed out.

After he reported his story, he was discharged. Like, get out of here. You're like, you're crazy. You're crazy. And it's thought that, based on the descriptions that both individuals gave, it's thought to be the ghost of First Lady Dolly Madison. The next is Willie Lincoln, the young son of Abraham and Mary, has been seen by members of the Grant administration throughout the house running around. In 1883, the description of an old man haunting the second floor made its way into the newspaper.

Apparently, it had been seen by President Grant with an apparition described as an aged and bent man with long, phosphorescent white beard and hair, ghastly and bright, glaring eyes. and scrawny fingers. His walk is noiseless, but stately, and his presence is always indicated by peculiar electric sensations which pervade the surrounding area. So that made it into the newspaper in the 1880s that people were sensing the spirit of an old man. Then there's the apparition of a British soldier who is presumed to have died during the raid of the White House, and he's seen roaming the halls holding a torch. Spooky. That one's like the creepiest one to me. I don't like that one. then there's the thing quote unquote like that's what's called the thing like from the adam's family

that's um the hand the hand i think there's a horror movie called the thing that's not a hand that's not a hand okay but anyways um so the thing william taff's military aid major archibald but wrote to his sister quote it seems that the white house is haunted the ghost it seems is a young boy I think about 14 or 15 years old. They say that the first knowledge one has of the presence of the thing is a slight pressure on your shoulder, as if someone was leaning over your shoulder to see what you might be doing. At this time, Taft threatened anyone in the White House staff that repeated stories about the thing would be fired. So they were kind of like gag ordered to like not say anything about that means it's real.

The president's like, shut your mouth. Shut up. And last but not least, I mean, of course there are many, many more. We decided to go a different direction. But last but not least is Big Abe himself. Arguably the most famous and beloved spirit in the home, many people have had experiences with him. These people include but aren't limited to Teddy and Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower, Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan's daughter, Harry Truman and his daughter, Margaret Hoover, and First Lady, Grace, race coolidge, along with many different valets, bodyguards, housekeepers, and visitors.

Accounts range from seeing him gazing out windows, pulling off his boots, lying in bed, hearing his heavy footsteps around the Lincoln bedroom, knocking on the door, or merely just feeling his presence. The whole notion of spiritualism in the red room and ghosts roaming the halls of the White House may seem kind of silly to people. But it's important to say that spiritualism offered a coping mechanism that was necessary during the peak of its popularity during the Civil War when life was shrouded in death. And while today we may look at the ghost of Lincoln as kind of like something to laugh at, a myth, legend, lore, it once brought a lot of solace to a wounded nation who really beloved their president. They'd like to think he was still hanging around

and checking in on his people. In an article in the New Yorker called, Why Did So Many Victorians Try to Speak with the dead by author Casey Kep. She ends with a line so fitting that I'll use it to conclude our episode. She says, quote, the dread of mortality has always inspired the dream of immortality and the hopes that animated Victorian spiritualism are eternal to bridge the divide between ourselves and those we have lost, to know that they are safe and content, and to believe that they are thinking of us just as much as we are thinking about them.

So that's it. That's all I have to say about spiritual. And I could go on and on. This episode is already long enough. But just to like conclude it. And I think we've said it a little bit, you know, just in passing throughout conversation. I just think it's really important to say that clearly spiritualism is not for everyone. Not everyone believes in it, ascribes to it. thinks it's real. And you don't have to. And you don't have to. You don't have to think it's true to learn about it. You don't have to. But not only that, it's like with the popularity of. spiritualistic practices kind of on the upswing, especially in the age of social media where you can comment very easily on things. I think that for someone who's finding peace or healing or comfort in whatever form that takes, whether it's spiritualism or literally anything else, that they choose to partake in, everyone has their own belief system and everyone grieves differently and moves throughout life differently. And while I'm sure that there are people or

participants who are kind of like there, wherever there is, like an actual physical place or on someone's page or whatever it is out of curiosity or just for entertainment purposes. Like even if you don't like believe in it, you're there to just like, you're like, huh, like what's this about? The vast majority of people who are there are there because they're at really low points in their life. Like if we're talking about going to a medium in particular, they're there because they're grieving, they're hurt, they're there out of desperation like Mary Todd Lincoln was, clearly. And it's something to really keep in mind the next time you're witnessing someone partaking in an activity or speaking about something that brings them comfort. Even if you don't believe in it or understand it or utilize it in your own life, basically just don't rain on somebody else's parade when it's like pouring in their own world.

Like they don't need that. And it's just like just be kind to others, especially in something such. like such a fragile topic. Like this isn't just for like shits and giggles. People go to this because they're like really upset and they're invested in this and they're looking for comfort and some type of just like solace and even if it's like what should I do? Like should I quit my job? Should I move to this place? Like it doesn't have to be like out of grief because someone died. It's like they just want guidance and that's just how they decide to do it. So yeah. I mean I don't think it's much different if we're talking about religion too. There's so many different religions out

there. You know, if it's not hurting anybody, then let people believe what they want. Yeah, whatever form people find comfort in and literally whatever the fuck that is, like just live and let live as long as they're not harming themselves or others, like just let them roll. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, I think this episode was really informative to a lot of different beliefs and practices and spiritual beliefs. And I mean, I certainly learned a lot today. And I learned that I never want to be president because I don't want to live in a haunted house.

So we can scratch that dream off my list. Have you visited? No, I've never been. I've been outside the White House, like walking out in front. I've been to D.C. quite a few times, but never toward it. Inside. Yeah.

Yeah. I'd like to. I think it would be cool. Yeah, it would be cool. Now knowing, especially. I want to see their secret room. I want to know the safe word. They'll never tell you.

Maybe they will. All right. Well, that's it. I feel like I have a sore thrower now. Like, I'm like raspy. This is a long episode. This is a long episode. All right.

Well, everyone will see you next time. In the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch you're back. Bye, everyone. Bye. Thank you so much for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale or story suggestion, send us an email at Stories at N-P-A-D-Podcast.com.

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