Occult America_ The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation - Mitch Horowitz [129]
Bronson Alcott is quoted on Hermes in Arthur Christy’s rare and important 1932 study, The Orient in American Transcendentalism (Columbia University Press; reprinted by Octagon Books, 1963). Alvin Boyd Kuhn’s Theosophy (Henry Holt, 1930) helpfully tracks the arc of metaphysical subjects in Emerson’s journals. K. Paul Johnson is quoted from his significant study The Masters Revealed (State University of New York Press, 1994).
In the vast literature on Spiritualism, a variety of ages are attributed to the Fox sisters, and historical records are inconclusive. The ages used here—Kate, 11, and Margaret, 14—are from John Patrick Deveney’s article in the Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism (Brill, 2006). Survey numbers on Spiritualism are from Whitney R. Cross’s The Burned-over District (Cornell University Press, 1950). E. W. Capron is quoted from Modern Spiritualism (Partridge and Brittan, 1855). The quotation from the Religio-Philosophical Journal is from August 26, 1865. Quotes from The Carrier Dove are taken from The Psychic World of California by David St. Clair (Doubleday, 1972). For summaries of the differing statistics of practicing Spiritualists, see The Other Side of Salvation by John B. Buescher (Skinner House, 2004), The Dawning of the Theosophical Movement by Michael Gomes (Quest, 1987), and The History of the Supernatural, Vol. II, by William Howitt (Longman, 1853). Also helpful is Radical Spirits by Ann Braude (Indiana University Press, 1989, 2001).
Lincoln is quoted on his son’s death from Behind the Scenes: or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House by Elizabeth Keckley (G. W. Carleton & Co., 1868). Mary Todd Lincoln is quoted from Abraham Lincoln: The War Years by Carl Sandburg (Harcourt, 1939). Mary Todd’s struggles with her son Robert appear in Mary Todd Lincoln by Jean H. Baker (Norton, 1987).
Mary Fenn Love is quoted from Radical Spirits by Ann Braude (Indiana University Press, 1989, 2001), an invaluable resource on women’s rights and Spiritualism. Frederick Douglass is quoted from Barbara Goldsmith’s Other Powers (Knopf, 1998), a monumental study of Victoria Woodhull. Also helpful is Mary Gabriel’s Notorious Victoria (Algonquin Books, 1998). For a Spiritualist view of Woodhull, see the pamphlet “Victoria C. Woodhull, A Biographical Sketch” by Theodore Tilton (The Golden Age, 1871).
The Shields episode in the Senate was on April 17, 1854 (the full transcript ran the following day in The New York Times). Total signatures on his petition are fuzzy: Shields testified to 15,000, while the document itself reports 13,000. Upon counting them, the industrious historian John B. Buescher found slightly fewer than 12,000 (see www.spirithistory.com/petnote.html).
Anna Blackwell is quoted from The History of Spiritualism, Volume II, by Arthur Conan Doyle (1926). Historical information on Caodaism can be found in Ralph B. Smith’s two-part study, “An Introduction to Caodaism,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London, Vol. XXXIII (1970). Other sources include “Cultural Intrusions and Religious Syncretism: The Case of Caodaism in Vietnam” by Graeme Lang, Working Papers Series No. 65, Southeast Asia Research Centre (July 2004); and “Vietnam’s Cao Dai Sect Flourishing Amid Hollywood Endorsement,” Agence France-Presse, 6/3/01.
Chapter Three: Don’t Try This at Home
The story of Ouija and the three teens is based on an episode reported in the “True Mystic Experiences” column of Fate magazine (July 2006). Special thanks are due to historians/curators Robert Murch and Eugene Orlando for their insights into Ouija and their intellectual doggedness in tracking down its history. Murch