Spiritualism, Seance, Ouija, and Ectoplasm

Paul Giamatti’s CHINWAG with Stephen Asma

Treefort Media & Touchy Feely Films

History, Society & Culture, Science

4.9 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 14 February 2024

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

🖤🖤🖤 Welcome Waggers! Come for the ghosts, stay for the vomiting ectoplasm! Paul and Stephen walk through the myriad ways folks talked to the dead throughout history with spiritualism expert and author Lisa Morton. En route they discuss spirits, mediums, oracles, ouija boards, priming, and rampant charlatanry in the business of ghost-hunting. Hear ghostly experiences from the legendary Stanley Hotel (aka- the Disneyland of ghost hotels made famous in The Shining), the birth of the seance and the impact of the Fox Sisters in popularizing spirits and the supernatural - and which body part was the real secret to their success. Also hear about exploits in levitation by D.D. Hume and famed apporter Agnes Guppy. Were any of these true believers or were they just putting on a show? But then there’s the medium who claimed to communicate with great artists of the past - who’s now credited with the beginning of surrealism. All this, and the one who could regurgitate ectoplasm, the matter of the spirits, at will. And did you know wars and mass traumatic events like Covid trigger a rise in paranormal beliefs? Now you do! Paul Giamatti is an award-winning actor and producer. Stephen Asma is a professor and author specializing in the philosophy of science, religion, and art. Lisa Morton is a screenwriter, author, 6-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award, and a renowned expert on Halloween and the paranormal. Her recent books include Calling the Spirits: A History of Seances and The Art of the Zombie Movie. She also hosts the weekly podcast “The Ghost Report with Lisa Morton.” 📋 Please help us by completing our Chinwagger Survey 👉🏼 https://gum.fm/chinwag 📋 🖤🖤🖤 ========= Chin-word of the Week: NECROMANCER ========= New eps of CHINWAG drop Wednesdays for free... n(🧊) Make sure to follow us @chinwagpod 👉🏼 IG: https://www.instagram.com/chinwagpod/ Tik: https://www.tiktok.com/@chinwagpod Website: http://chinwagpod.fm YOUTUBE x CHINWAG Playlists ▶️ YT Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@chinwagpod Full episodes playlist: https://bit.ly/chinwagYT Animated shorts: https://bit.ly/chinwaganimations Send your stories, Qs, or thoughts to 📧 questions [at] chinwagpod [dot] fm Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everybody it's Paul Giamotti speaking Stephen Asmas I live and breathe. How are you sir?
0:10.0	I'm doing well. Are you familiar with NPR's throughline podcast, Steve?
0:14.7	Yeah, it's an excellent podcast, and I've been listening to it for a while.
0:17.7	Yeah, you're a listener.
0:18.9	Yeah.
0:19.9	I love this show.
0:20.5	Every week, they go back in time to understand the present because you can't fully
0:24.7	understand the moment we're living in without knowing where we've been, right?
0:27.7	Very true.
0:28.7	And on every episode of NPR's throughline, the host take a story from the news
0:32.4	and go back to where it started.
0:34.2	They seek to answer one important question, how did we get here?
0:37.8	It's interesting stuff.
0:38.8	They have some amazing topics I think our audience will find intriguing.
0:41.8	There was a recent one about the scientist who tried to stop the aging process
0:46.0	because he deemed old age to be a disease that he could cure.
0:50.0	So it gets into all kinds of weird stuff.
0:52.0	Wow. Eternal youth, our fear of
0:54.0	aging, our fear of death,
0:55.0	it traces he feelings back thousands of years.
0:58.0	It's remarkable discussion.
0:59.0	So, very cool stuff.
	...

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