Episode 44 - Hot Leads Cold Cases Guest Mitch Horowitz - Expert on Occult History

05/04/12 - Nancy du Tertre, known as "The Skeptical Psychic" and host of "Hot Leads Cold Cases" speaks with her guest Josh Horowitz on this week's episode. Josh is an historian of the Occult Movement in the United States. They discuss the origin of trendy New Age concepts like "The Law of Attractions" and the Ouija Board's emergence as a child's boardgame in the late 1800's. They also talk about the epicenter of the Occult Movement in upstate New York and how it operated hand-in-hand with other very progressive social movements of the mid-19th century, including the woman's right to vote (suffrage), the anti-slavery movement (abolitionism), and the new religions (Quaker, Shaker, Seventh Day Adventism, Mormonism). Occultist seances made it all the way into the Lincoln White House and the well-known Fox Sisters, who are credited with starting the spiritualist movement in the US, were actually consulted by First Lade Mary Todd Lincoln after the president was assassinated!