Séances and Suffrage: Salem, Spiritualism, and the Feminine Voice

Before there were séances in Victorian parlors… there were fires in Salem.In this episode, Brett Harpp — The Haunted Therapist — explores the unexpected historical thread connecting the Salem witch trials, the rise of Spiritualism, and feminist theory’s influence on modern psychology.In the mid-1800s, women mediums suddenly found themselves leading séances, speaking publicly, and influencing movements for abolition and women’s rights. Spiritualism gave women something society rarely allowed them: a voice.A century later, feminist theory would challenge psychology itself — questioning why women’s emotions, intuition, and anger had long been pathologized.In this conversation we explore:• Salem’s legacy and the cultural fear of feminine power• The Fox Sisters and the birth of Spiritualism• Mediumship as an unexpected form of feminist resistance• Feminist theory’s challenge to traditional psychology• Why trauma therapy today sometimes feels like holding a séance with the parts of ourselves that were silencedBecause sometimes healing means listening to the ghosts — not banishing them.