BackStory; American Spirit: A History of the Supernatural

So guys, Kara Seekings referred to this phenomenon of spirit communication as really being a universal impulse. But let's take a few minutes and see if we can't pin it down to the American variant of that impulse. Yeah, all people throughout time have believed that there's a world beyond our control and beyond the material world we encounter. But Americans in there can do pragmatic sort of way, have from the very beginning sought to engage with that world beyond through individual efforts, not through the mediation, not through the clergy, not through the church. I think this is really part of the Protestant tradition. Well, I've just got one word for you then that kind of, as they say, problematizes that Peter, think what it is that Kara Seekings is and what is required for connection with the spiritual world, the medium.

Yeah, so ironically, yeah, so it's Protestant in the sense that it doesn't exist in a church. But I think what's strange about it is they're saying only a few people actually have the idea. But I think the promise really is that this medium is like a translator that is in some sense is just the tool or the instrument does not have authority. The authority comes from that other realm and it's enabling people to hear a language they couldn't understand otherwise. So it's like a Protestant minister who comes in and here's what the Bible says, I'm going to translate it for you, but I have no real authority because this is between you and God. That's right. And everything in between fades away, that is institutions of hierarchy and control. Instead, this is the fantasy and it's an American fantasy that we encounter the cosmos on our own.

Well, Peter, I have news for you that's a lot less cosmic and that's it, it's time for a quick break.