Read Online The President's Vampire: Strange-But-True Tales of the United States of America by Robert Schneck - Free Book Online
Authors: Robert Schneck
Ads: Link
was subsequently driven from churches in New Bedford and Weymouth. In 1844, after delivering an anti-slavery speech in Portland, Maine, a mob beat him senseless, leaving him an invalid for months. When he recovered, he operated a portion of the “Underground Railroad” in Boston, helping runaway slaves get to Canada, and acquired a name as the “Prisoner’s Friend” for his work in improving penitentiaries and abolishing the death penalty.
While Spear crusaded in Boston, a strange series of events unfolded in rural New York State that would change his approach to reform. The Fox family—a father, mother and two young daughters—had moved into a farmhouse in Hydesville in December 1847, where they began hearing inexplicable sounds. Before long, the Foxes found themselves in the middle of what seemed to be full-blown poltergeist phenomena.
Months of noise, especially knocking sounds, exhausted the family. On the night of 31 March 1848, 11-year old Kate invited the “ghost” to rap the same number of times she snapped her fingers. It did, and this display of intelligent control led to more communication. The poltergeist claimed to be the spirit of a murdered peddler, and two basic tenets of spiritualism were established: the soul survives death and the dead can communicate with the living.(3) The day that Kate began communicating with the ghost, Andrew Jackson Davis—a visionary writer and healer known as the “Seer of Poughkeepsie”—had a revelation that “a living demonstration is born” and the movement that was to become known as “Modern Spiritualism” (or simply “Spiritualism”) began.
The Fox sisters gave public demonstrations of their mediumship and within five years spiritualism was everywhere. Amateurs experimented with spirit communication in home circles and attended séances and lectures by professional mediums. Hostesses were advised to introduce the “fascinating subject of spiritualism [at dinner parties] when conversation chances to flag over the walnuts and wine.”(4) Reformers were especially attracted to the way it challenged social and religious orthodoxies, had neither a hierarchy nor articles of faith, and offered what seemed to be limitless possibilities wherever it was applied.
In 1851, Spear left the Universalist church and became a spiritualist. With the encouragement of his daughter Sophronia, he developed his powers as a trance medium and accepted guidance from the spirits of Emanuel Swedenborg, Oliver Dennett (who had nursed Spear after the mob attack), and Benjamin Franklin, a very popular figure at séances. Spirits led Spear on trips to faraway towns, where he was directed to cure the sick by laying on hands or making inspired prescriptions.
That summer he received twelve messages from the late John Murray and published them as Messages from the Superior State . He followed this with a series of public demonstrations in which he entered a trance while spirits spoke through him on a wide variety of topics—including health and politics—and delivered a twelve-part lecture on geology, a subject about which Spear claimed to be almost wholly ignorant. The speeches, however, were not well received, as it seemed to be the medium, rather than spirits, speaking.(5)
Spear trusted these spirit advisors without reservation. Among their “projects” was an experiment in which Spear “subjected himself to the most scathing ridicule from his contemporaries by seeking to promote the influence and control of spirits through the aid of copper and zinc batteries so arranged about the person as to form an armor from which he expected extraordinary results.”(6)
Despite his efforts, Spear’s reputation remained small, while the Fox sisters held sittings with leading citizens (including First Lady, Mrs. Franklin Pierce), and Andrew Jackson Davis became a famed lecturer and author. Spear’s fortunes promised to change, however, after a spirit-inspired journey to Rochester, New
While Spear crusaded in Boston, a strange series of events unfolded in rural New York State that would change his approach to reform. The Fox family—a father, mother and two young daughters—had moved into a farmhouse in Hydesville in December 1847, where they began hearing inexplicable sounds. Before long, the Foxes found themselves in the middle of what seemed to be full-blown poltergeist phenomena.
Months of noise, especially knocking sounds, exhausted the family. On the night of 31 March 1848, 11-year old Kate invited the “ghost” to rap the same number of times she snapped her fingers. It did, and this display of intelligent control led to more communication. The poltergeist claimed to be the spirit of a murdered peddler, and two basic tenets of spiritualism were established: the soul survives death and the dead can communicate with the living.(3) The day that Kate began communicating with the ghost, Andrew Jackson Davis—a visionary writer and healer known as the “Seer of Poughkeepsie”—had a revelation that “a living demonstration is born” and the movement that was to become known as “Modern Spiritualism” (or simply “Spiritualism”) began.
The Fox sisters gave public demonstrations of their mediumship and within five years spiritualism was everywhere. Amateurs experimented with spirit communication in home circles and attended séances and lectures by professional mediums. Hostesses were advised to introduce the “fascinating subject of spiritualism [at dinner parties] when conversation chances to flag over the walnuts and wine.”(4) Reformers were especially attracted to the way it challenged social and religious orthodoxies, had neither a hierarchy nor articles of faith, and offered what seemed to be limitless possibilities wherever it was applied.
In 1851, Spear left the Universalist church and became a spiritualist. With the encouragement of his daughter Sophronia, he developed his powers as a trance medium and accepted guidance from the spirits of Emanuel Swedenborg, Oliver Dennett (who had nursed Spear after the mob attack), and Benjamin Franklin, a very popular figure at séances. Spirits led Spear on trips to faraway towns, where he was directed to cure the sick by laying on hands or making inspired prescriptions.
That summer he received twelve messages from the late John Murray and published them as Messages from the Superior State . He followed this with a series of public demonstrations in which he entered a trance while spirits spoke through him on a wide variety of topics—including health and politics—and delivered a twelve-part lecture on geology, a subject about which Spear claimed to be almost wholly ignorant. The speeches, however, were not well received, as it seemed to be the medium, rather than spirits, speaking.(5)
Spear trusted these spirit advisors without reservation. Among their “projects” was an experiment in which Spear “subjected himself to the most scathing ridicule from his contemporaries by seeking to promote the influence and control of spirits through the aid of copper and zinc batteries so arranged about the person as to form an armor from which he expected extraordinary results.”(6)
Despite his efforts, Spear’s reputation remained small, while the Fox sisters held sittings with leading citizens (including First Lady, Mrs. Franklin Pierce), and Andrew Jackson Davis became a famed lecturer and author. Spear’s fortunes promised to change, however, after a spirit-inspired journey to Rochester, New
Similar Books
