Welcome to Unobscured, a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky.

Historian Emily Clark is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Gonzaga University.

She's our guest for this episode.

Her scholarship focuses on African-American religions, American Catholic history, colonialism,

religious material culture, and finally, something that were big fans of around here.

Dr. Clark's first book, Illuminous Brotherhood, won multiple awards for its exploration

of the Sir Carmonique in New Orleans.

She sat down to talk with researcher Carl Nellis about this fascinating circle of

spiritualists and what their story tells us about spiritualism in America.

But their conversation didn't stop there.

Her deep understanding of spiritualism was invaluable for putting our story together

and we're so glad she could join us.

We begin with her perspective on what it meant to be a spiritualist in 19th century America.

This is the Unobscured Interview Series for season 2.

I'm Aaron Minky.

To be a spiritualist meant that you, one of the central things guiding your understanding

of the religious and spiritual world, was a belief in a spirit world beyond this material

earthly one.

And additionally, that communication with spirits in that world was possible.

And not just possible, but was something that, you know, if you could do, you should do.

Spiritualism was completely compatible with various forms of Christianity, especially liberal

Protestantism.

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