cc  >> Good afternoon, everyone, and  welcome to History Sandwiched In  again.  Today is, I think, a special  treat for me to introduce  today's speaker who is Sara  Rath.  Her latest book, she's an  author, not just a Wisconsin  author but an author known  everywhere, who recently wrote a  book "The Night Sisters."  There's a theme of spiritualism,  contacting the dead, and she's  also written books of poetry and  other novels.  This novel we have on sale here  at our book store outside, and  Sara Rath will be more than  pleased to sign your copy.  So don't miss out on this.  Today our speaker will be  speaking about some of the  research she did on  spiritualism, and specifically a  spiritualist camp which still  exists today in Wonewoc,  Wisconsin.  So without further delay, please  welcome to History Sandwiched In  Sarah Rath.  (applause)  >> Sara Rath: Thank you,  Archibald.  I'm fascinated by the nature of  belief and the ways in which  groups of people address their  beliefs.  And that's partly what  instigated the writing and  research of this book. 

 To give you an example of how  people accept spiritualism, on  my web page yesterday I  discovered a new letter on my  discussion page, and it said,  "Dear Sarah, I was first  introduced to Spook Hill when I  married my husband in 1971, and  he took me to visit his  grandmother in Wonewoc.  I asked the inevitable question  of why it was called Spook Hill.  As a boy my husband and his  mischievous friends would sneak  through the woods behind their  house and climb up the hill to  the camp.  He repeated stories they were  told about some of the cabins  being haunted.  They would get so frightened the  slightest noise would send them  scrambling back to the safety of  their own yards.  Grandma Emma just laughed and  shook her head.  She passed away in 1998.  One summer not long after her  passing my husband and I visited  the spiritualist camp, and we  met with a medium for a reading.  We had lost our son the same  year, and it was very comforting  to experience that communion  with him.  The camp is in a beautiful  setting, although the buildings  are indeed in need of repair. 

 I am looking forward to reading  your book "Night Sisters"  while on vacation in Arizona.  We plan to visit Sedona, another  very spiritual place."  So that was quite nice.  And in my book my heroine goes  to Wocanaga, which is Wonewoc.  And she's there for the first  visit, and she wants to know  what it is that mediums do.  Some of you might not be aware  of how mediums converse with the  dead.  So she meets this fellow called  Spence and he says the speaker  is talking about mediumship and  she says,  "Jesus was our first medium.  Even if you don't think of  Christ as a savior, he's still  one of the greatest mediums and  healers and teachers that ever  lived."  Then she delivers messages from  spirit.  I scribbled a few notes.  "And how does she do that?"  Spence took a sip of his coffee  and patiently explained.  "It's pretty simple really. 

 All matter is spiritual energy  at different rates of vibration.  For example, prayer is the  sending of thought vibrations to  a higher source."  "Okay," I said, nodding, writing  as fast as I could.  "When a medium delivers messages  from spirit, she tunes into  vibrations from the spirit world  when she raises her own  vibrations to a higher level  because their vibrations are  higher than ours.  And, at the same time, the  spirit who happens to be  communicating with her lowers  his or her vibrations.  So the two can meet somewhere in  the middle.  Does that make sense?  Then the medium communicates  this message to those of us who  are still on this plane."  I nodded as if this did not  sound peculiar to me at all.  "Well, you can always find  mediums on the grounds here this  time of year," Spence said.  "Last night I was given a  message at Inspiration Point.  That's a spot on the path, a  limestone shelf that's sort of  an overlook.  Grace Waverly always handles  those sessions. 

 She's the most famous and  probably the oldest medium we  have here at Wocanaga."  Well, Grace Waverly does not  exist, I'm sorry to say.  But the Wonewoc Spiritualist  Camp, AKA Wocanaga, does.  The Wonewoc Spiritualist Camp  has been in existence since  1893.  Locals frequently refer to it as  Spook Hill, but in reality it's  a kind of a church camp because  spiritualism is a religion.  And why isn't this moving.  There we go.  Yeah, spooky.  This camp is one of only 12  summer spiritualist camps in the  United States.  I know of one in Cassadaga,  Florida, thus Wocanaga, Wonewoc,  Cassadaga.  And I've made several visits to  the largest one in Lily Dale,  New York. 

 The first spiritualist came to  Wonewoc from New York in 1874.  13 pioneer families led by Ruben  Fisk arrived from Erie County to  settle in the hills of the  Baraboo Valley.  Wonewoc, population 834, is  located west of Baraboo, not far  from Wisconsin Dells, and it's  the most southern village in  Juneau County.  The main street has a  restaurant, a small grocery  store, a few taverns and a  bakery.  It's part of the driftless  unglaciated part of Wisconsin  with beautiful rock outcroppings  and rugged land, that was  appealing to 19th century  travelers who were seeking the  scenic wilderness in the west.  And the 400 bicycle trail runs  parallel to Main Street which is  highway 33.  The cradle of modern  spiritualism, as it came to be  known, was here in the Fox  cottage in Hydesville, New York,  in the winter of 1848.  Two sisters, Katie and Margaret  Fox, then ages 11 and 15,  reported mysterious rapping  sounds emanating from their  bedroom walls, and it was  finally ascertained that these  raps were a communication from a  peddler who had been murdered on  the premises years before.  Later on when we have our  question and answer period you  can ask me about the peddler's  trunk.  It's a good story. 

 Here are Katie, on the left, and  Margaret Fox, and I don't know  the name of the sister in the  middle because my research this  last week was not all that good.  Sorry.  They became very famous when the  word got around that they could  receive messages from the dead.  I don't know, maybe the middle  sister was a dud at that.  She never got the fame the  others did.  Here's a much more glamorous  painting of the two, Katie and  Margaret.  Their farmhouse became a Mecca  for those who were eager to  hear from their deceased  relatives, and before long  spiritualism was a national  craze attracting such notable  followers as Mary Todd Lincoln  and her husband, Walt Whitman,  Edgar Allan Poe and Sir Arthur  Conan Doyle.  Andrew Jackson Davis, also known  as the Poughkeepsie seer, became  the leader of the modern  spiritualist movement.  He practiced magnetic healing  which is kind of a  self-hypnosis.  And he was the author of a great  many books that were, he said,  channeled to him by spirit. 

 Among these were The Great  Hormonia, an encyclopedia in six  volumes, and the Magic Staff, an  autobiography published in 1857.  In all, Andrew Jackson Davis  published a total of 30 books.  His influence was, and still is,  considered sacred by  spiritualists who became devoted  to his various and sometimes  unusual concepts and radical  pronouncements.  Although today I don't think  there are a whole lot of  spiritualists who practice free  love.  This is a poster that shows John  Fox and his wife and their  daughters.  Soon after the advent of modern  spiritualism in western New  York, the phenomenon  enthusiastically spread in all  directions and even as far west  as Wisconsin where spirit  circles sprung up in cities and  rural areas.  There was even sheet music  written about it.  But the process of figuring out  the number of raps that equal  each letter of the alphabet  became very tedious.  As you can imagine.  Eventually, mediums began  transmitting messages through  spirit lectures or in private  seances which were called spirit  circles, and they still are  called that, where messages are  delivered by the medium to the  individuals who are present. 

 This is actually kind of a funny  cartoon which says speaking  medium.  Morning toilet.  Startling prediction.  The camp at night.  The magnetic healers, this is an  example of magnetic healing.  A medium's wash day.  I don't know what the top one  says, and this says I am a  writing medium, sir.  Because they did automatic  writing.  I love that illustration.  Nathaniel Talmage was United  States senator from New York,  and he was appointed by  president John Tyler in 1844 to  be the governor of the Wisconsin  territory. 

 Talmage made his home in Fond du  Lac.  He was an extremely influential  man in 19th century  spiritualism, and he claimed to  be a medium.  His four beautiful daughters  created a sensation in  fashionable circles in  Washington, DC, when they  utilized their gifts of trance  and musical improvisation,  automatic writing and speaking  in tongues.  You may be aware that the city  of Ripon grew from Ceresco,  which was a 19th century utopian  commune founded by the  spiritualist and champion of  radical causes Warren Chase.  He was a member of the Wisconsin  legislature, and lectured on  spiritualism across the country  where he also advocated women's  rights and the principle of  nonresistance.  Our most famous medium in  Wisconsin was probably Cora  Scott of Lake Mills.  She was nationally revered and  made her debut at the age of 11  when she claimed that a school  composition was done by  automatic writing.  At least the dog didn't eat it.  At the age of 17 she delivered  discourses, whose marvelous  beauty of diction and style of  oratory was their least  attraction.  She was a very beautiful woman. 

 This slide does not do her  justice, and she became  extremely popular across the  United States, perhaps because  she was so beautiful, and when a  medium stood on stage to deliver  a spirit message she stood by  herself, entranced, and men in  the audience could...  appreciate her.  (laughter)  You must remember  this was prior to the Civil War.  Lyman Copeland Draper, secretary  of the Wisconsin Historical  Society, was also a strong  adherent of spiritualism, and,  as a result, this society holds  a vast collection devoted to  that subject.  Draper became attracted to  spiritualism in 1868 after the  death of his daughter Helen whom  he wanted to contact.  He also hoped to communicate  with Indian fighters and  deceased pioneers.  A medium told him he would die  on August 27th, but he was not  given the year.  His death actually occurred near  midnight on August 26, 1891.  By 1859 the Spiritual Register,  a national publication, listed  70,000 spiritualists in  Wisconsin.  And by 1860 there were 80,000  devotees. 

 There were meetings all over the  state.  The Milwaukee Sentinel warned  that spiritualism was at best  ridiculous and at worst  dangerous to mental, physical  and spiritual health.  Okay, back to Wonewoc.  John L. Potter,  a native of Massachusetts,  came to Wonewoc in 1875  and began giving weekly  spiritualist lectures in an old  schoolhouse near the lumberyard.  The little group of  spiritualists there was growing,  and members soon organized the  Joint Stock Spiritualist  Association which hosted dances  and lectures to raise money for  their movement.  By 1893 they were able to  purchase some densely wooded  land along the bluffs that many  believed was a sacred Indian  burial ground.  The old schoolhouse was  eventually moved up there to  what became the Wonewoc's camp  grounds.  The first area there was called  Unity Park.  And it was intended to be the  site of the spiritualists'  annual statewide convention.  Plans initially called for the  development of a spa. 

 Now when you talk about a spa in  those days it would mean a place  where you would take of the  waters.  Maybe be soaked by a wet sheet  on a cold day and lie there for  a couple hours and be healed.  It wasn't a spa like today where  you go to get a facial and a  massage.  At this time visitors arrived by  railroad to Wonewoc and stayed  in tents that rented for $3 a  week.  Back then spiritualism was a  radical movement.  They didn't have a preacher or a  minister.  They had a medium or a spirit  lecturer.  The spiritualists were actually  cutting-edge in their time.  This is the early dining room at  Unity Park, a large tent with  screens for windows.  Eventually, the mediums built  small cabins to replace their  tents, and the total area of the  camp continued to expand as  members sought to procure more  and more land. 

 Today the Wonewoc Spiritualist  Camp encompasses 37 acres.  The circular path connecting  three dozen cottages is known as  Harmony Way.  The chapel or the auditorium  where message services were held  was an early building enlarged  in 1815.  Unfortunately, today the chapel  is in a state of disrepair and  unusable due to severe damage  from a tree that fell during a  hard storm.  Through the years, elaborate  tests have been conducted for  the press at Wonewoc to prove  that hoaxes were not involved.  The Wisconsin State Journal sent  a reporter out to the camp in  July 1949 to attend a seance.  An act of levitation was  expected to occur, but the  medium said there were not  enough good thoughts to make the  medium float around the room.  The reporter drew no  conclusions, but he said the  event was very dramatic.  Here in the 1950s a test is  being performed to see if a  medium is authentic.  A map of the Wonewoc camp  indicates more than 36 cottages  arranged in a circle. 

 In the center are the auditorium  or the chapel, the dining and  the restrooms or the bathrooms.  I'm not sure you can see that.  This is the chapel.  The bathrooms, there actually  are two showers there.  And the dining room.  This is the office.  This is where you enter, where  the sign was that I showed you  in the very beginning.  >> (inaudible)  >> Rath: Yes, that was  a restaurant.  I'll show you a picture of that.  (laughter)  But thank you for asking. 

 Actually, that's a base and they  arrive several times a week and  you can take a ride if you like.  (laughter)  Before the bathroom  and the shower building were  built in 1950, those who stayed  in the cottages used outhouses  during the day and chamber pots  at night.  During the 1940s and '50s there  were sometimes as many as 600  visitors per day who came to  Wonewoc by train.  This is the office at the  Wonewoc Spiritualist Camp.  Here you can obtain further  information about the camp and  explore a small library of  spiritualist books, a very small  library.  It's one shelf,  I was kind of disappointed.  You can purchase candles,  snacks, water or soda or a small  gift or token to remember your  visit.  The setting is very bucolic,  quiet and serene.  It's a restful place to have a  picnic or to visit even if you  have absolutely no interest in  contacting spirits.  In front of one building, in  front of cabin 13, there is a  light bulb that has reputedly  burned continuously for 30  years. 

 It is referred to as the spirit  light.  I am standing in front of a  little brown cabin with an early  spirit trumpet.  More about that later.  I have it with me.  I'm going to tell you how it  works.  Recently I was told this cabin  was the site of early seances  because it provided just enough  space for 12 chairs.  But this summer when it was torn  apart and given a new floor,  small pulleys and a variety of  fishing lines were revealed that  may have been involved with  earlier fraudulent  manifestations in the dark.  I was told this by the current  head medium at Wonewoc.  During the 1990s, the camp had a  restaurant on the grounds called  The Flying Saucer restaurant,  but it is no longer open for  business.  The trees tower high and give an  impression of great strength. 

 You can see the damaged chapel  on the left with a blue tarp on  the top.  And the restrooms, that's the  building on the right in brick.  This is from the entrance on the  left you can see the way, you  see the lamp post there, that's  the office and then you drive in  and that begins the circular  drive.  The cabins are now available for  $15 a night.  When I first went up there a  couple years ago they were $10 a  night.  Now they're $15.  I don't know if you still get a  chamber pot after dark.  I didn't look under the bed.  (laughter)  From May to September  many cottages are inhabited by  mediums who will provide  readings for visitors seven days  a week.  A 30 minute reading is $40. 

 On Wednesdays senior citizens  get a special deal...  (laughter)  $35, but you really should  call ahead  for an appointment.  The 2010 season will run from  June 1st to August 27th.  This is the new dining hall  which also serves as the current  chapel.  Dinners are no longer served  there except on special  occasions.  This is the porch to the dining  hall.  You notice no dogs are allowed.  The dining hall was erected in  1928.  On Sundays during the summer,  worship, healing and message  services take place in the  dining hall at 10:00.  And I highly recommend going to  those. 

 They're not at all harmful.  They're very interesting and if  the spirits who are conducting  the service have a message for  you, they'll come around and  deliver the message.  Usually what happens in the  church service is the head  medium stands at the podium and  gives kind of a sermon but it's  usually a feel-good kind of  message, and then there are  chairs up in front for other  mediums.  You can see them.  Here's a chair, here's a chair,  here, here, here.  And after the healing part of  the service, when everybody bows  their head and they're healed of  whatever is bothering them, then  the mediums will come around to  people sitting in the pews and  deliver personal messages to  them.  Which are never scary.  I have to assure you it's a very  friendly place.  They would never tell you if  they saw something really  horrible in your aura or if they  saw something really frightening  in your future.  Nowadays the most common message  is Grandma wants you to know  she's doing well. 

 (laughter)  That's seems to be a  big concern of people going to  Wonewoc.  They want to know that those who  have passed on are comfortable  and doing okay.  My book "Night Sisters" in which  my heroine discovers Wonewoc,  called Wocanaga, and learns to  be a medium, had its official  book launch in the chapel in the  dining hall at the end of the  2008 season at the close of the  church service.  This is Judith Ulch, who's the  current head medium at Wonewoc,  and I'm holding her great  grandmother's trumpet which I  have with me right here.  And in the olden days a trumpet  would levitate and travel around  a seance with a voice emanating  from inside.  Ectoplasm would provide the  vocal cords.  Judith has tried but she's never  been able to get it to work for  her.  Now here I'm going to read  "Genuine Mediumship or the  Invisible Powers"  by Swami Bhakta Vishita,  and this is the chapter  on trumpet mediumship.  You're getting a lesson here.  "In what is known as trumpet  mediumship, the sound of the  voice of the communicating  spirit is increased in power by  use of a trumpet-shaped  arrangement of paper, cardboard,  tin or aluminum."  Now you see this collapses. 

 I think that is so cool.  (laughter)  And I actually feel  quite honored to have this  artifact of the early days of  mediumship here.  "There's no particular virtue in  the material used, and anyone  may make a serviceable trumpet  out of heavy paper or thin  cardboard.  The principle of the use of the  spirit trumpet is precisely that  of the well-known megaphone,  i.e., it magnifies the sound  and increases  its carrying power.  A spirit speaking in the  faintest whisper through the  trumpet is able to have its  voice heard plainly to those  present in the circle where  otherwise nothing would be  heard.  Often the spirit force is so  strong that it will pick up the  trumpet and carry it around the  circle, tapping the various  members thereof and whispering  through it into the ear of some  particular members.  Weak spirits, therefore, who are  unable to make themselves heard  in the ordinary way often employ  the trumpet with affect in  seances.  When the trumpet is used it  should be placed on the table  awaiting the use  of the spirits."  I don't hear anything.  There's nothing.  Nobody is here with us today. 

 But I'm pleased that Judith let  me borrow that.  This is the Andrew Jackson house  named for the Poughkeepsie seer  who is the father of modern  spiritualism.  Seances are held every Friday  night here, and rooms are  available for rent on the second  floor.  This is the living room of the  Andrew Jackson Davis house where  you may attend a seance.  Advanced registration is  suggested and there is a $25  fee.  This is their charming front  porch taken by my shaky hand.  Now as you would expect not all  citizens of Wonewoc have been  fond of the nearby location of  the spiritualist camp.  It was rumored that they  practiced Satanism there and  sacrificed small animals.  Spiritualists were not welcomed  to use the restroom at the  neighborhood gas station, and  they couldn't get their hair cut  at the local beauty shop.  And some of those superstitions  about Spook Hill have taken a  long time to dissipate. 

 This last winter there was a lot  of vandalism to several of the  cabins in the Davis house by  local teens which created a big  mess to be cleaned up this  spring and a lot of expense.  If I ever do spend a night at  the Wonewoc camp I will ask to  stay in the Rosebud Cottage.  The interior is rustic but warm  and it appears to be fairly  clean.  The bed squeaks but it's  comfortable.  I think the worst thing about it  is the painting above the bed.  (laughter)  And it has cold  running water which was added to  the cabins in 1979.  There's also a back door which  makes the short walk from  Rosebud to the bathroom a bit  more tolerable.  I find the grounds on the entire  camp to be a charming, unchanged  remnant of the 19th century.  But a bit more daunting is the  place referred to as Inspiration  Point because off that edge is  the village of Wonewoc, but it's  a long way down.  My husband, who took this  picture, kept telling me to go  further out. 

 (laughter)  And I kept saying,  but it slants down and there's  nothing to hold on to.  And he kept saying, yes, but it  would make such a good picture.  This is the bathroom on the left  with two showers, and the toilet  stalls have ethereal paintings.  It's worth your while to go  inside.  In the distance, again, you can  see the ruined chapel which they  hope to be able to repair.  Now if you're queasy or weak of  heart, have no fear.  Here is a six-unit motel built  in 1987 which is complete with  private paths.  Since 1874 the spiritualists  from Wonewoc have embraced  messages from beyond.  The camp still offers a place  for solace and healing, which I  think is quite remarkable.  Wisconsin poet Ella Wheeler  Wilcox, an avowed adherent of  spiritualism, felt her family  was too advanced intellectually  to accept the old eternal  brimstone idea of hell and the  internal psalm-singing idea of  heaven. 

 She said, "tune your ear to all  the wordless music of the stars  and to the voice of nature and  to your heart shall turn truth  and goodness as the plant turns  to the sun.  A thousand unseen hands reached  down to help you to their peace  crowned heights."  On Sundays you will hear the  strains of hymns that reassure  the faithful of another  existence beyond this one.  Spiritualists support freedom of  religion, freedom from  discrimination including on the  basis of sexual orientation,  women's rights, the right to  die, planned parenthood and the  widest dissemination of sex and  hygiene knowledge to the end  that poverty and social diseases  maybe eliminated.  They also believe in evolution.  Spiritualism is a positive  philosophy emphasizing  opportunities for growth.  The religion symbol is the sun  flower which turns its face  toward the light of the sun just  as spiritualism turns the face  of humanity toward the light of  truth.  If you have any questions I'd  be, oh, I have one more slide.  For more information on the camp  consult their web page at  www.CampWonewoc.com  or write to  info@CampWonewoc.com.  If you would like more  information on spiritualism in  general, you can contact the  National Spiritualist  Association of Churches which is  NSAC.org.  And then I have the address for  the Wonewoc Camp which is 304  Hill Street, Wonewoc, 53968. 

 Yes?  >> Are you and your talk written  up in a magazine?  >> Rath: No, I don't think so.  >> A lot of times they are.  >> Rath: That would be really  nice, wouldn't it?  >> I can't remember everything  you said.  >> Rath: Well, I can give you a  copy of my talk.  Or you can purchase my book  which has a lot of the same  information.  >> Will it have all that in it?  >> Rath: It will have a lot  in it, yes.  >> One more thing.  >> Rath: Yes?  >> What you just said about the  sun flower, back in the late  1900s I think a sun flower was  put on a lot of houses and I  wonder, as part of the  decorations.  >> Rath: I don't know what  that had to do with.  >> (inaudible)  >> Rath: Could be. 

 It's a very cheerful flower.  It follows the sun.  I wanted to tell you about the  trunk that belonged to the  peddler in the Hydesville house  that the Fox sisters lived in.  >> Can you tell us about the  peddler's trunk?  >> Rath: Yes, I'm going to.  (laughter)  Thank you, very much,  for reminding me.  The entire cottage was moved to  Lily Dale, New York, which is a  spiritualist camp in Cassadaga,  New York.  And they had had it on top of a  hill and people were allowed to  go inside.  And they furnished it with the  peddler's trunk and a few other  things from the Fox cabin.  But somehow the cabin burned  down, and I suspect it was  somewhat like the stuff that  happened at Wonewoc when kids  got in and started messing  around.  So I suspect someone burned it  down. 

 But they removed the trunk and  they put it in the museum at  Lily Dale.  And they have a wonderful museum  of spiritualism things there.  They have slates with slate  drawings.  They have beautiful paintings  that were done under the  influence of spiritualism while  in trance and all kinds of  really unusual things, and the  trunk is really the most special  thing.  And I just wanted to tell you  that one day when I was in the  museum and nobody was looking I  touched the trunk.  (laughter)  So I've never  confessed that before.  (laughter)  But the trunk was dug  up after the house burned down  when the Foxes were living in it  and they were looking for the  peddler.  They found the peddler's body  and they found the trunk.  So then everything was moved to  Lily Dale including the trunk  but not the peddler's body.  I think he was disposed of in a  different fashion. 

 But who cares because he was  communicating with the girls so  everything was okay.  Do you have any other questions  before I dig a hole deeper for  myself?  Yes?  >> At the grounds where the camp  ended up in Wonewoc...  >> Rath: Yes.  >> Was it proven that it was an  Indian burial?  >> Rath: There is no proof  that it was, no.  That may just be a rumor that it  was an Indian burial grounds.  Yes?  >> I keep wondering how  spiritualism fits in.  In the -- there were a lot of  alternatives.  There was transcendentalism and  all the different utopian  communities and was this just  another manifestation of --.  >> Rath: That's a very good  question, a lot of these  happened in New York state.  Mormonism, Seventh-day  Adventism, it was part of the  great Burned-Over District which  happened when there were just  these vast movements of  religions that popped up and  moved westward. 

 And spiritualism was one of  those.  And they all occurred kind of  close to one another which is  interesting.  I don't know if it was something  in the water.  I think more than that, it was  something to do with the times.  And a lot of women attended  these revival meetings, and they  would think that, oh, Mormonism  is really wonderful, and then  spiritualism speaker would come  in, and then they would all  think spiritualism is the thing.  It's like when you study  different philosophers, at least  for me, I study one and I think,  oh, yeah, that's the way it is  and then I go to a different  chapter and I think, well, not  that one, this is the way it is.  >> It's interesting you said  women because the suffrage  movement began --.  >> Rath: Yes, that's right.  >> And I don't remember exactly  when.  >> Rath: It was around the same  time as spiritualism and the  spiritualists were very much  involved with that. 

 And Susan B. Anthony  and Elizabeth Cady Stanton  stayed at the Lily Dale  assembly in a hotel there when  they were not allowed to stay at  the Chataqua.  >> And then the other question I  had is I'm wondering if it  really took off after the Civil  War?  >> Rath: Yes, I think so.  >> Because if you look at the  number of people lost in the  war.  >> Rath: They wanted to contact.  >> (inaudible))  >> Rath: Yes, I think that's  very possible.  >> (inaudible)  >> Rath: Yes?  >> (inaudible)  >> Rath: Burned-Over District.  Well, that had to do with the  great awakening that took place  in New England, I'm showing you  New England here.  The revival movement, all these  churches and different belief  systems that erupted in New  England in the 1850s, and I'm  not expert enough historian to  speak on that in detail right  now, but it's a very interesting  phenomenon that deserves more  research on your part.  (laughter)  >> (inaudible)  >> Rath: Burned-Over?  Yes, because it just happened so  rapidly.  It was like a brush fire. 

 One religion popped up and then  another one popped up and then  another one and another one.  >> In New York?  >> Rath: New York state, yes,  and then expanded through New  England and came westward.  And in those days Wisconsin was  west.  I've done a great deal of  research into a Vermont medium  named -- Spragg, who traveled,  prior to the Civil War, by  herself by stagecoach and by  train.  And she came as far west as  Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison and  Davenport, Iowa.  That was it.  And then she went down to St.  Louis, I'm doing this map thing,  I'm getting this backwards,  Memphis and Terre Haute, Indiana  all by herself and did these  trance lectures.  She was a very beautiful woman  where she would stand on stage  like this and like this and  deliver her lectures which were  reviewed by newspapers to be  either beautiful or a humbug or  whatever their slant was.  And it was just very interesting  to read her letters and her  diaries, and I'm still working  on that, and it's going to be a  book someday. 

 Anything else?  Yes?  >> Camp Wonewoc, can you just go  there?  >> Rath: Yes.  >> And walk around?  >> Rath: Yes.  There's no admission fee,  yes, you can.  And I highly recommend that,  even though the restaurant isn't  open.  Take a picnic lunch, they have  picnic tables on the grounds,  and it is so beautiful and so  peaceful.  And one of the things that I  have always felt in these  spiritualist places like Lily  Dale or Wonewoc is everybody is  so cheerful, and I finally  decided it's because they're not  afraid of dying.  They don't think about that.  They just live every day and  they're very serene, and the  whole place has that atmosphere  of serenity.  I thought I saw another hand.  Yes?  >> (inaudible)  >> Rath: Where did I go  to high school. 

 (laughter)  I went to Little Wolf  High School in Manawa,  Wisconsin, which is in the  central part of the state.  I grew up a Methodist and now  I'm Unitarian.  And I'm very accepting of other   beliefs, and I just have this  interest in why people believe  what they do and how they  manifest their beliefs.  Yes?  >> Have you ever seen a seance  work?  >> Rath: Oh, yes.  Oh, yes.  When I was researching this book  I took a class on how to become  a medium.  Yes.  >> Online?  (laughter)  >> Rath: What? Online?  (laughter)  No, not online.  >> You can.  >> Rath: I know,  isn't that something. 

 No, I spent a week out at the  Lily Dale Assembly and took a  class in the personal  development of mediumship.  And actually I used my notes  from that class in my book  because my heroine takes a  similar class, oddly enough, and  those notes that I took in my  class become her notes from her  class because it was very  interesting about sitting in a  spirit circle.  Oh, my god, one time  I was doing this and it was  a rainy day and a thundery day,  and it was the last day of the  class, and we were sitting there  for at least an hour just in  total silence, and all of the  sudden this guy next to me went,  "HO!"  (laughter)  And I thought, what in the heck.  And then he started speaking as  though he were an Indian.  You weren't supposed to open  your eyes but believe me  everybody in that circle opened  their eyes because that was  very, very scary.  So I've sat and he was  apparently contacted.  Yes?  >> What kind of Indian?  American Indian?  >> Rath: American Indian.  American Indians were very big  with the early spiritualists.  They called them red Indians and  people often said they had red  Indian guides who looked after  them like a guardian angel or  who spoke to them and gave them  messages.  >> What did the man say?  >> Rath: I don't remember  other than "HO!"  (laughter)  After that I was kind of,  I lost it. 

 Yes?  >> What's interesting when you  talk about Indians because I'm  wondering like on the further  edges of the western expansion  where there were still active  conflict with Indians but the  spiritualism took off there.  Because often when people get  conquered right when they're on  the edge of making their people  disappeared then they start  romanticizing.  >> Rath: I think that might be  what happened.  >> (inaudible)  >> Rath: I don't know a  lot about spiritualism in the  actual western part of the  United States.  >> I'd be willing to bet.  >> Rath: I think you might  be right.  >> Was this the Oneida Indians?  >> Rath: This was New York state  so he didn't say  what kind of Indian he was.  All he said was "ho" and a bunch  of other stuff.  That was after the medium  leading the thing who was Cherry  Blossom, who was a little  Japanese lady, and then she  became a man and it's in the  book.  I don't remember exactly. 

 Because after this was all over,  the head medium, whose name was  Rose Clifford and she was from  London, and she came over and  said, Sara I'm so disappeared  that you didn't speak because  your throat chakra is so well  developed.  (laughter)  So I hated to be a  disappointment to her but on the  other hand I was kind of scared  that I might talk.  (laughter)  And didn't know what  I would say.  So anything else?  Yes?  >> There are still classes  available at Morris Pratt  Institute?  >> Rath: Yes, there is a school  to learn to be a spiritualist  medium at the Morris Pratt  Institute in Wauwatosa.  You can take classes and be  certified as a spiritualist  medium.  The woman who did run that  place, however, recently left  and is now on her own, and I  looked her up on the internet.  And I'm sorry to say, I had gone  to her for a reading.  I had paid her $40 for a reading  one day, and I thought it was  kind of interesting, and she  said a few interesting things,  but the two mediums in charge of  that place smoke like chimneys,  and I thought mediums should  know that it's not good to  smoke.  (laughter)  Which kind of took  the edge off her reading.  But now she's on her own and  doing her own thing, and she  does readings through email. 

 Well, I don't want to pass  judgment, but I think there's  something going on there that  would be a good way to make a  living.  (laughter)  Because doing a  reading by telephone is one  thing, doing a reading by email,  eh.  Okay, what time are we supposed  to be finished?  1:00 o'clock?  It's 1:00 o'clock.  Thank you, so much, for coming.  (applause)