Join us for spooky season! This time we’ll talk about the rise of spiritualism, complete with seances, exclusive clubs, famous true believers, infamous fakes and frauds, and the most respected magician of all time, Harry Houdini. Sources: Dawson, Kate Winkler. The Ghost Club. Penguin, 2023. Houdini, Harry. A Magician Among the Spirits. Cambridge University Press, 2011. Jaher, David, and Simon Vance. The Witch of Lime Street: Séance, Seduction, and Houdini in the Spirit World. Random House, 2015. Ptacin, Mira. The In-Betweens: The Spiritualists, Mediums, and Legends of Camp Etna. Liveright Publishing Corporation, a Division of W. W. Norton & Company, 2019.

In 1845, Sir John Franklin led an expedition in search of the northwest passage with two boats, aptly named HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, and never returned. To this day people search for clues as to what became of them, and what they did find carried horrifying implications.

Sources:

Beattie, Owen, et al. Frozen in Time : The Fate of the Franklin Expedition. Vancouver ; Berkeley, Greystone Books, 2017.

Brandt, Anthony. Man Who Ate His Boots: The Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage. Random House, 2010.

Palin, Michael. Erebus. Greystone Books Ltd, 25 Sept. 2018.

In this episode we talk about what could’ve (and what probably) happened to Pocahontas while she was in England. It’s not something you would find in a Disney movie!

Sources: Custalow, Linwood “Little Bear,” and Angela L. Daniel. The True Story of Pocahontas: The Other Side of History. Tantor Audio, 2023.

Editors. “John Smith’s Writings (U.S. National Park Service).” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 4 Feb. 2022, www.nps.gov/articles/000/john-smith-writings.htm.

Price, David A. Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Heart of a New Nation. Vintage Books, 2005.

Smith, John, and James Horn. Writings: With Other Narratives of Roanoke, Jamestown, and the First English Settlement of America. Library of America : Distributed to the Trade in the U.S. by Penguin Putnam, 2007.