EXCERPT:
We walk down a street that seems lifted from a Victorian era children’s book and there, on the white clapboard cottage’s wall, is the small sign we have been told to look for: “Mrs. Hanson, Medium”. Reverend Hanson, as she is properly known, answers the door and there, behind her, is Mr. Hanson. in what can only be called a front parlor, sitting in an open necked short-sleeve white shirt reading his paper. We are invited in, but only my wife Hayden can enter the reading room, lest “your vibrations” disturb the clarity of Mrs. Hanson’s focus. On the left of the entrance to her Reading Room, pinned to the wall, is her Certificate of Ordination from the International General Assembly of Spiritualists, and her Florida State business license, entitling her to give readings from her home. Psychic “channeling” did not begin in America with James Van Praagh, and Jonathon Edwards, and the New Age movement we know today is really only the most recent iteration of a feature of America’s religious and spiritual landscape that traces back to our colonial past. Nor did the country’s fascination with communes and “intentional” small communities start with the 60s.
Publication History: AMERICAN HERITAGE APRIL/MAY 2005
