I’ve been always fascinated by the occult and divination. I love a mystery and things of another world but I also like talking to people and helping them so naturally I’ve found myself studying tarot cards. I remember buying my first (and only) pack from a Barnes and Noble when I was 18 or so. I had been eyeing them for months but always stopped short of purchasing because of my mother’s Catholic warnings of them being the devil’s tool. That stopped me for awhile but finally I decided to throw caution to the wind and do it. And that was when I became master of my own domain and everything I wanted was mine…no not really but wouldn’t that be nice?

I took them home and tried to study the major arcana. Then I would forget what I learned and learn it again…and then again. It would never stick. And thus began a decades old process of deciding every summer would be the summer I learned it all, getting discouraged, and putting my deck away until the next summer. Rinse. Repeat.

This summer was no different in the pattern. But 2020 isn’t a normal year. I was not the only one perfecting their tarot. Of the side hustles that almost all my friends were creating in the wake of loosing performing arts work I found that many of them started ventures involving crystals and divination. I wondered if this was always interest to them or if we were all falling into a pattern: trying to quell uncertainty in uncertain times. My friends are not alone. The Google search for “psycic” jumped to a one year high the first week of quarantine and Yelp reports that business in the “Supernatural Readings” category on their app is up 140%. This is certainly not the first time this trend has happened.

Spiritualism, defined as, “a system of belief or religious practice based on supposed communication with the spirits of the dead, especially through mediums” began in the 1840s as part of “The Second Great Awakening” in New York State that also brought us Millerism and Mormonism. The teachings of  Emanuel Swedenborg  and Franz Mesmer provided important elements that would form the foundations of Spiritualism. Swedenborg believed that spirits were a direct contact between God and man and Mesmer wrote of the process in which one would enter a trance (now known as hypnosis) that would allow one access the dead. The term “mesmerized” comes from him. However, many count the real start of the Spiritualist movement as March 1848 when the world was introduced to the Fox sisters who made contact with an old beggar who died in their upstate cabin. The sisters became sensations who toured the country to sold out crowds. They later confessed to being fakes then recanted…but that could be a whole other post on its own.

“American spiritualism — a movement that at its peak claimed more than a million followers — was born out of the basic human longing for contact with a loved one lost to death. but to literalists, spiritualism’s true spark came in 1848 from something no more or less powerful than a bored teenage girl.” 

Nancy Rubin Stuart , The Reluctant Spiritualist: The Life of Maggie Fox

These humble beginnings were a preview of what was to come. The later part of the 1800s and first third of the 20th century would provide a staggering amount of carnage and a desperate need to contact those lost. The first catastrophe being The Civil War. With a high number of men dying tragically the popularity among women requesting seances in their homes or attending large gatherings was quite high. Notably, Mary Todd Lincoln held seances for her dead son in the White House. This popularity continued to be high but really took off for the same reasons after World War I. The Spanish Flu then quickly followed. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had a son who died in 1918 of pneumonia brought on by the flu and claimed to have spoken to him numerous times through mediums. He said that his son told told him he was at peace and the great beyond was quite similar to this world. He was apparently comforted by that. I don’t know if I would be. But I digress.

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Going to a seance was not the only popular way to reach the dead during that time. If you wanted to stay and home and save a bit of money you could buy a Ouija Board. While they were around since 1890 they became increasingly popular from 1917-1922. They were blamed for people’s sudden insanity and there were reports of individuals being committed to facilities because of them.