Lore - Episode 37: Passing Notes

Episode Date: June 27, 2016

For as crowded as this world has become, most people feel isolated and alone. Perhaps that’s why so many of us believe that there’s another world, just beyond the veil. But when that veil is tampered with and pulled aside, it’s hard to say what might emerge. * * * Official Lore Website Support Lore Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support

We live in a crowded world. As of this episode, the US Census Bureau puts the number of human lives on our pale blue dot of a planet at around 7.3 billion. I'm not sure I need to unpack that for you, that's simply a lot of people. And because of that, there are very few places where we can go to be truly alone. Our cities are congested. Our highways and parking lots seem to be overflowing. It boggles the mind thinking about just how many people are around us on a daily basis,

which is why our homes offer a bit of peace and escape. At home, we feel as if we're in control. It's a personal space where strangers aren't allowed in without invitation, where we can let down our guard and feel safe. Our dwelling places have been a refuge for us ever since humans gave up their nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle and settled in one location. Even still, multiple religions throughout history have taught us to believe that while we might think we are alone, there is another world beyond the thin veil of reality.

Heaven, the other world, the afterlife. We can call it what we want, but humans, for the most part at least, have always believed it's there, waiting for us. It was in the mid-19th century, though, that some people began to propose new ideas about that world. They claimed that, rather than being passive, this other world was active and thriving. And if we understood how, we could even interact with it. We could even communicate with it.

Some people took hope in this. Some people fought against it, regardless this new belief spread. Few people, though, expected the darker side of this new vision. They celebrated the hope that came from discovering a new door and relished their chance to open it and walk through. But just because we can, doesn't mean we should. Some doors, you see, are closed for a reason. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore.

In 1848, something odd was going on at the home of John and Margaret Fox, who lived in Hidesville, New York. They were a poor family, but their fortunes changed when their two youngest daughters, Kate and Margaret, started to communicate with an unseen entity in their home through a series of clicks and knocks. When word got out about what the girls could do, the girls, 12 and 15 years old at the time, were asked to bring their abilities to the stage in Rochester, New York. And that was the moment that launched their career.

Kate and Margaret toured the country, performing group séances in front of sell-out crowds. They inspired a whole slew of imitators, and the girls made a good living at it for close to 40 years. The Fox sisters came on the scene at a time when there was a growing interest in forces outside of our own existence. While spiritualism itself is said to have blossomed in upstate New York, some people think we can thank France Mesmer for getting it started. Mesmer was a German physician who started out by investigating the healing power of

magnets, but moved on to believe that inside and outside forces influenced our human experience. He focused on the healing powers of his theory, but never found success in the medical field. Later researchers transitioned his work into a field they called neurohypnosis, or nervous sleep, which eventually became known as hypnosis. Today we think of mesmerism, or of being mesmerized, and we think of hypnosis. But it was the spiritual movement that found the most hope in his ideas. It took their belief in something that sounded insane, communicating with the dead, and learning from them, and put it in the realm of science.

At least, that's what they thought. In 1888, 40 years after their careers began, the Fox sisters confessed to their trickery. Both of them, it seems, could rotate their ankles and bend their toes in a way that produced audible clicks. Each seance they had performed had been nothing more than an act. But the world of spiritualism that they'd brought to the forefront of popular culture didn't just go away. It had already taken root, and despite their confession, it showed no sign of stopping.

There was mixed reception. In some ways, these were teachings in contradiction to the accepted theology of a very large portion of Christianity, and some spoke out about that. In other ways, though, spiritualism seemed to confirm what most churches already taught. That even after death, we maintain our personalities and live on in another manner. For those who lost loved ones, or had a deep curiosity about the afterlife, seances offered a chance to say goodbye, to say hello, or just to learn. Popular figures lined up on both sides of the fence.

In the 1920s, magician and performer Harry Houdini was a vocal opponent and actively sought to disprove anyone that claimed to be in communication with the world beyond the veil. John Neville Mescalin, another stage magician and inventor of all things of the pay toilet, actually sat in on seances and pointed out the trickery as it happened. But not everyone saw it as a farce. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator and author of the Sherlock Holmes novels, was a vocal supporter of spiritualism.

He even belonged to a London organization known as the Ghost Club, rooted in a deep belief in the supernatural and the otherworldly. Other members included Charles Dickens, W.B. Yates, and Charles Babbage, one of the fathers of the programmable computer. There were others, though, who took things too far. Thomas Bradford was one of those people. In 1920, he placed an ad in a Detroit, Michigan newspaper seeking others who were as curious about the afterlife as he was.

He was looking for a partner, someone to converse with, to support each other and to further each other's knowledge of life after death. So when Ruth Doran replied, the two struck up a friendship and partnership. The goal was to become of one mind, they said, to be attuned to each other in a way that death could not break. And then in February of 1921, Bradford and Doran took their research to the next level. Bradford locked his apartment door. He turned on his heater, blew out the pilot light, and then waited patiently for the room

to fill with gas. He died of asphyxiation shortly after, with the plan to reach out to his partner from beyond the grave and confirm their beliefs. So Ruth waited. She never heard from him again. When his wife passed away, Presbyterian minister, Eli Kim Phelps, found himself alone at the age of 59. His children had all grown up and moved out, and so he looked for a change in his life

that would bring him some semblance of happiness. He found that change in a younger woman, and soon the couple were married. His new bride was in her 40s and came into the marriage with three children of her own under the age of 16. Shortly after, though, Mr. and Mrs. Phelps welcomed another son into their lives, and then in November of 1847, the family purchased a home in Stratford, Connecticut. It was a unique and sprawling mansion, built just 22 years prior by a retired sea captain, but had sat unoccupied in the years since his death in 1845.

It was a large house, too. Those who visited there said that the layout had more than a passing resemblance to a ship, something one might expect from a home built for a sailor. The main hallway was an unbelievable 70 feet long, and there were five bedrooms on the second floor with two more on the third. It provided all the space a family of six might need, and then some. They moved into the mansion in February of 1848, and for the first two years, life there was uneventful.

But on March 10th, 1850, all of that changed. They'd gone to church that morning, as you might expect from a minister and his family. Upon leaving, Reverend Phelps locked the doors because no one would be home. Even the maid was off for the day. When they returned home later that morning, the front door of the house was standing wide open. Phelps stepped inside carefully and noticed that more doors had been opened inside the home.

Furniture had been toppled, dishes lay broken on the floor, and everyday objects like books and decorations were scattered all about the house. They'd clearly been robbed. The nursery was found in chaos as well, with furniture tossed onto the bed in that room. In a panic, Phelps checked the downstairs closet where they kept the valuable family silver and discovered that it was still there, untouched. Even his gold pocket watch was found right where he had left it, which begged the question, but they had been robbed.

What valuables had actually been taken? Concern Reverend Phelps suggested that the entire family travel upstairs together to continue their inspection. They looked inside each room, one by one, looking for signs of the same chaos and vandalism, but every room they checked seemed to be untouched. If someone had broken in, perhaps they'd been frightened off before having a chance to come upstairs. The last room they checked was that of Mr. and Mrs. Phelps.

The space was clean and tidy, and the bed was still neatly made, but something odd lay in the center of it. It was Mrs. Phelps' nightgown. It had been laid out in the shape of a person, with arms crossed over its chest like a corpse prepared for viewing. Even a pair of stockings had been added to the arrangement, giving it the appearance of feet. And there, on a nearby wall, was a series of indecipherable scribbles, something that

looked and felt evil to the core. As hard as it is to believe, though, the family brushed these events off as a simple prank, some random act of vandalism and nothing more, and even harder to believe when it came time to return to church that day for the afternoon schedule, the entire family willingly did so. Everyone, that is, except Mr. Phelps. He stayed behind, relocked the doors and windows, and then took a seat in one of the upstairs rooms with a pistol in hand to wait for the vandals to return.

But when nothing unusual happened for over an hour, Phelps quietly slipped out of the room to inspect the rest of the house. Downstairs, he slowly pushed open the door to the dining room, and then froze. Nearly a dozen figures stood in the center of the room. Some stood tall, holding bibles, others were bowed low to the floor. All of them, though, seemed focused on the shape of a small, otherworldly creature above their heads. Phelps stared at it for a moment, before realizing it was a small statue hanging from the ceiling

by a string. It was a lot to take in, I suppose. That might explain why it took Phelps so long to notice the other oddities in the room. The women who were gathered around the figure weren't moving, they weren't even real. Each one, it turns out, was nothing more than clothing taken from an upstairs room. They were life-sized ragdolls. Someone, or something, had gathered the clothes, pinned them together into human shapes, and then stuffed each of them with rags.

Well, without Phelps hearing a thing. Dr. Phelps took the blame for the figures. No, he didn't create them. And no, he didn't tell people that he did. He fully admitted that they were unusual. Otherworldly even. He didn't know how to explain their appearance, but he believed that he had unintentionally played a part in it all.

He blamed the events of the week before. On March 4th, a friend had visited the Phelps' home. It had been a typical visit. After dinner with the family, both men retired to the study for drinks and deeper conversation. And being 1850, the spiritualist movement was fresh on this visitor's mind. It's hard to say what they talked about. Maybe the Fox sisters came up. Maybe they told stories of reported hauntings or unusual activity found in the newspapers.

What we do know, though, is that the conversation eventually turned to seances. The word seance is French, and it simply means a session or a sitting. In the spiritualist movement, though, a seance was something more. It was an attempt to communicate with the spirit world, to reach out through the thin curtain between life and death, and feel in the dark for something tangible, something real. Seance was, and is, an act of hope. For Phelps and his visitor, though, it was a curiosity, and they decided right then

and there to try one. Maybe it was the scotch they'd been sharing, or the late hour. It's hard to say for sure what drives people to do things that are out of their character, but it happens nonetheless. The two men were said to have conducted their own short amateur seance, right there in the study. And according to the admission of Phelps himself, it appeared to have been successful, however underwhelming it might have seemed.

After calling out for a response from the spirit world, the man reportedly heard a distant knocking. Back then they called it rapping, but please don't confuse that with the work of Jay-Z. It's most likely the men forgot about that evening altogether. But after the March 10th incident with the life-sized dolls, things in the Phelps household only became more unusual. Things were escalating, it seems, and it was happening in the presence of multiple witnesses. Phelps himself was a skeptic, and so to help him document these experiences, he often brought in equally skeptical colleagues.

Later details report how the activity in the house grew more and more unnatural. Objects would appear from thin air and slowly move across the room. Some of these objects would even land softly, as if being set down by a guiding hand. Food would appear during meals, sometimes dropping right onto the table. Even heavy objects, such as the fireplace tools, were said to have moved around the room on their own. At one point Phelps called on another minister, Reverend John Mitchell, to help him investigate further.

The two men locked themselves in the parlor and waited, knowing it would be impossible for someone, one of the children, they assumed, to sneak in and toss objects through the air. While inside the room that night, it's reported that the men witnessed dozens of items appear in the air and then fall to the floor. Many of those items turned out to be clothing from upstairs, as if it had been falling through a hole in the ceiling. Clothing, mind you, like those used to create the life-sized figures that Phelps had seen weeks before.

The stories caught the attention of other members of the Phelps family. Once, he was paid a visit by his adult son, Austin, a theology professor, and Phelps' own brother, Abner, one of the most prominent medical doctors in Boston at the time. While there, the two men heard knocking at the front door. When they opened it, no one was there. Of course, they assumed it was a prank. In a house full of children, it was always the logical explanation. So they then systematically inspected all of the rooms in the house, looking for the

person responsible for the noise. Doors were checked, children were isolated and watched. In the end, their search came to a frustrating conclusion that evening when both men heard the knocking once again, this time while each was standing on the other side of the door. Granted, flying skirts and visible knocking was something most families might be able to work around. There didn't seem to be anything malicious or dangerous about the activity, so throughout all of this, Phelps acted without urgency.

In many ways, it seems that he was more of a curious observer than a concerned homeowner. But that was all about to change. The physical attacks began as pinches and slaps, sometime during April of 1850. One reporter who had come to the Phelps home to discuss their experiences actually witnessed some of these attacks. According to him, there was nothing suspicious about it at all. No one, from what he could tell, had faked any of it. It became more life-threatening when Mrs. Phelps awoke in the middle of the night to

find a pillow being pressed over her face and something wrapped around her throat. She survived, but it became clear that day that the spirit, if that's what it really was, was far from benign, and then it turned its sights on their young son, Henry. Henry was just eleven at the time, and although no one is sure why, he became the primary focus for the attacks doled out by this unseen force in the house. Rocks were thrown at him on multiple occasions. He was sometimes seen to be levitated up toward the ceiling, and a newspaper reporter once witnessed the child being picked up and thrown across a room, all by an unseen force.

Henry occasionally went missing, too, much to the concern of his parents. The first time it happened, he was later found strung up in a tree outside, bound with rope, and unaware of how he got there. Another time, he was finally found inside one of the home's closets, resting on a shelf too high for the boy have climbed onto himself, and there was a noose around his neck. Henry suffered more than anyone else in the Phelps household that year. He was pushed into a cistern of water. His clothing was torn apart while he was wearing it, and on one occasion, a fire was ignited

beneath his bed, threatening to burn him alive. Thankfully, he managed to escape most of these attacks unharmed, but the threat was very real. As the attacks on Henry continued, Phelps grew more and more frustrated. He began to shout to whoever was responsible, speaking to empty rooms, and demanding the activity to stop. It never did, though, and on more than one occasion, mysterious notes would appear, rough handwriting on scraps of paper, that passed messages to the homeowner. Even though the notes themselves are now lost, Phelps reported that their contents were beyond

disturbing. As a final attempt to free his home from whatever force was inhabiting it, Phelps gathered witnesses for a second seance. His hope was that he might learn something about the spirit, something that would help him get rid of it, or at the very least, appease it. Phelps had lost hope, and now his rational mind was leaning into unknown territory out of desperation. The seance, though, revealed very little new information, but according to reports from

Phelps and other witnesses, the spirit did identify itself. It claimed to be a he, a deceased clerk who had once worked with Mrs. Phelps on a financial matter. The name was investigated, and certain details did match up with the public records, but it was still unclear what the spirit wanted and how they might be finally rid of it. The notes continued to appear as well. Once, a paper drifted onto the table during a tea party hosted by Mrs. Phelps. Mr. Phelps himself received dozens, many of which referenced common names for the devil

from that era. Titles like Beelzebub, Sam Slick, and Sir Sambo all found their way onto these notes. Finally, in September of that year, a note appeared on the desk while Phelps was there working. He glanced at the handwriting and deciphered the message as best he could. It was a question, presumably from the spirit who haunted the house. When are you planning to leave? It asked.

It was a clear and powerful message. Phelps and his family weren't welcome there anymore. Maybe it was a threat. Maybe the attacks would increase, or more dramatic events might follow. If a small fire could be lit beneath Henry's bed, it didn't seem like a stretch to imagine the entire house being at risk of burning. Phelps took a moment to process the question, and then reached out for the paper. Between his pencil, he wrote his answer below the messy handwriting.

October 1st There was no reply that day, but Phelps stuck to his agreement. On October 1st of 1850, the family returned to Pennsylvania, and he himself followed shortly after. Weeks later, though, they all returned. Now, I'm not sure why, to be honest. Maybe they wanted to give it another try. It was their home, after all.

But the activity continued. There was more knocking, more writing on the wall, and more objects that moved through the air, as if they were dangling from invisible strings. Then one final note appeared in the house in May of 1851, and after that, the family moved out for good. Most of us know someone with a story to tell about unexplainable things, objects that seem to move without our involvement, sounds they can't explain, that feeling of being watched when there's no one else in the room, or even the house.

It's easy to understand why some people have a desire to search for the truth. But what if the act of reaching out for answers has real-world consequences? Certainly, the events in the Phelps mansion confirm something of that kind. Maybe those events were the result of a family with a very open mind, doing their best to interpret admittedly unusual experiences. Or perhaps they're right. Maybe there really is something beyond the veil, and it reaches through from time to time, in order to affect the lives of the living.

It's a difficult question to answer. Even impossible, perhaps. Which is why we keep asking it. Remnants of spiritualism have stuck around, embedded in our popular culture. Classic horror novels like The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson and Richard Matheson's Hell House both drew heavily on that world, featuring seances, automatic writing, and other worldly activity. Living today with movies like The Exorcist and What Lies Beneath, the notion of reaching

out to communicate with the world beyond our own is alive and well. And maybe there's a good reason why. Another family bought the Phelps mansion after they moved back to Pennsylvania, and over the years the home changed hands often. By the 1940s, it had been converted into a facility for the care of the elderly. And when the casertas, both of whom were registered nurses, moved there in 1947, there were already more stories filling the hallways, doors that wouldn't stay shut, knocking, whispers, and random noises that seemed to have no explanation.

But it was their infant son, Gary, who encountered the most trouble. One night, the couple was pulled from sleep by one of the patient buzzers. Carl quickly stepped out of their room and descended to the second floor to see what was wrong. As he did, though, he caught scent of smoke. He quickly ran from room to room, checking in with each patient. But all of them were asleep. Finally at a loss for answers, he dashed back up to the third floor and into Gary's room.

Inside the scent was stronger, and smoke billowed from the direction of the crib. Rushing over, he found the blanket at Gary's feet was burning, small flames slowly spreading to the sheets. One other night of sleep was interrupted by the same buzzer system, and this time Gary's parents both exited their room just in time to find the boy crawling toward the top of the staircase. How the boy got out of his crib and into the hallway is still a mystery. In each instance, the alert system saved Gary's life.

Needless to say, the casertas were very thankful for the person or people responsible for telling them that Gary needed help. It was ironic, really. The buzzer system was designed to allow them to help the patients, but twice it seemed the patients had helped them. So they asked each of them one by one, and none of the patients claimed responsibility. Now clearly, the casertas didn't know the Phelps, and while there is a chance that locals whispered of the old hauntings, they most likely didn't know the full extent of the

stories. They certainly didn't know about the contents of those otherworldly notes that would appear from time to time. Given the chance to read them, though, they would have been surprised by what that final note said a century before in May of 1851. The evil one has gone, and a better one has come. This episode of lore was researched, written, and produced by me, Aaron Mankey. Lore is much more than a podcast.

There's a book series in bookstores around the country and online, and the second season of the Amazon Prime television show was recently released. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life. I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, and Unobscured, and I think you'd enjoy both. Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic. You can learn about both of those shows and everything else going on all over in one central

place. The World of Lore.com slash now. And you can also follow the show on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Just search for Lore podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. When you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll see you in the next one.