For some reason Talking to the Dead became a slog for me even though I also enjoyed learning more about the rise of Spiritualism generally and the Fox Sisters specifically. I wanted to know more about the history of the movement after my partner and I visited Lily Dale this summer. Although nothing there convinced me that the mediums there hwere channeling the dead, it is a lovely village in which to spend a weekend and they tave the largest collection of Susan B. Anthony objects in the world. She spoke there a bunch of times and visited even more. They hosted Women's Suffrage summits for many years and long before women were able to vote. The Lily Dale museum has a good deal of ephemera from those events - buttons, photographs, letters, yearbooks. The connection between the early women's movement and Spiritualism fascinated me. While this book didn't discuss that in too much detail, it described the circumstances of Spiritualism's early days in ways that helped me see how the two things were linked. It also fascinates me how that little part of New York became a hotbed of new religious movements - Spiritualism, Mormonism, the Oenida movement and others I'm forgetting all had their genesis there in a relatively short time period. She discusses that briefly in the beginning of the book, but I'm likely to go looking for something that provides more details about that phenomenon.

The history of the sisters themselves along with all of the 'tests' of their mediumship were detailed and thorough. I can't really say where it stopped holding my interest. Perhaps the people themselves just weren't that interesting. I did like hearing of all of the famous and important people of the era believed in Spiritualism and the ability to contact the dead. I was already familiar with the possibility of the great uprising of belief in the ability to contact the dead was a result of the grief connected to so many people dying. There was a cholera outbreak when the Fox sisters started hearing knocks and, of course, the Civil War and its atrocities began not that long into the increased openness to Spiritualism Weisberg also explores the possibility that their willingness to believe, or at least reserve judgement, was tied to the technological developments at that time - telegraph, electricity - was interesting and thought provoking.

Honestly, if you are interested in the rise of Spiritualism in general and the Fox sisters specifically, this is a fine book to get a thorough look at that history without an underlying agenda of belief or disbelief. My recommendation is that, if you can, you should visit Lily Dale instead. ( )

Reviewed August 2007

What a wonderful book, maybe I should have read this one before the Houdini one so they could be in sequence. Houdini and Doyle were mentioned in the last chapter but the main story of these interesting women is very well researched. The author did her best to balance her narrative. These sisters did what they had to do to survive in a man's world. Even though I don't condone their actions you have to admire them and feel sadness at their awful lives. The author mentions Lilly Dale several times which is really cool as I've been there. Wish I had read this book first though. I also wish the author could have included more pictures of the people mentioned. She did a good job setting the story in events of antebellum America, war and post civil war. i had no idea that mediums were on par with prostitutes. I also learned that "music could be used by the devil to incite carnal excitement as well as by that interest in Spiritualism was waining in America, her reason for this includes, raising life expectancy, women were given more opportunities for work and school, Spiritualists were not likely to organize, the excitement at the beginning lessened as technology increased and religion took on some aspects of spiritualism." (p. 261)

19-2007 ( )

This was a very interesting topic, but rather dry reading in parts. I used it as research for the novel I was writing (about the Fox Sisters) although I rather preferred The Reluctant Spriritualist and Exploring Other Worlds. Still, this was the first book I read on the topic, and it inspired me to write my novel in the first place. ( )

Based for the most part in upper New York State, Talking to the Dead paints a detailed picture about the life of a woman in ante-bellum America.

Besides, who wouldn’t be intrigued by this opening passage?

“In late March 1848 two young sisters excitedly waylaid a neighbor, eager to tell her about the strange sounds they had been hearing at home nearly every night around bedtime. The noises, the girls confided..., seemed to have no explanation. Their father had failed to discover the source of the raps and knocks. Their mother was exhausted from worry and lack of sleep….” ( )

It's certainly probably just me, because so many people gave this book top ratings, but while the subject matter was quite interesting, I thought the presentation of it to be just kind of dull. The book runs along the lines of an introduction to Spiritualism (a phrase coined by Horace Greeley (147-148)) in the United States, starting with the Fox sisters, Kate and Maggie, in the late 1840s. It is the author's thought that starting with these two and their experiences with spirit rapping from the time of their childhood, American Spiritualism became a phenomenon. The question is why? I've long been interested in the topic of the Fox Sisters, in fraudulent mediumship and in the growth of the spiritualist movement in general, and although this book is helpful, in hindsight, I probably wouldn't have started with this one (although I certainly would have eventually not missed it) in gaining some knowledge about the subject.

The info between the covers is interesting, and I think I might have enjoyed it more with a better presentation of the story. ( )