"Ghost Church" by Jamie Loftus, a podcast miniseries about American Spiritualism

[Night Owl]

I finished listening to Ghost Church today and thought I'd write a brief review. I'd like to see if anyone else here has listened to it, and otherwise make a recommendation. Ghost Church is a podcast composed of nine roughly hour-long episodes. It's narrated by a comedian-slash-podcaster who I mainly know for her more irreverent work: My Year in Mensa (where she deservedly lambasts the eponymous high-IQ society), and Behind the Bastards (where she's a regular guest; I stopped being a regular listener when it stopped surprising me and started doing a number on my faith in humanity). So it was something of a surprise to me that Ghost Church is as heartfelt and sympathetic as it is, because it doesn't sound like it should be.

One of the things makes Ghost Church special is that Jamie comes to it as a genuinely curious-yet-critical outsider, which is a perspective I don't think makes it into "pop theology" that deals with American Spiritualism or related practices much. She is very explicit about her perspective of it as a minority religion that's not altogether that different from other minority religions. What follows seems to reflect that. The podcast has a sense of humour, but I don't think it makes Spiritualism the butt of the joke.

I have some criticism to make, not because I don't like the podcast but because I think that reviews shouldn't just be advertisements. The research that isn't original is done in true non-expert podcaster fashion -- Jamie's read a book and will generally present whatever the author said as an expert opinion, even if it does't appear to be on further inspection. However, she often names the books she uses, so if something stands out to you as worth checking up on it's possible to do that. Notably, I thought that the first episode could have really done with a stronger argument about why Spiritualism isn't a cult than that it didn't fit the criteria provided by a specific non-academic book--not that the ideas were bad, they actually seemed pretty in line with Jenett's CARE guidelines--but I personally would have liked it if there was more rigor, and more discussion of the different ways that people define cults and the different motivations people have for labelling groups cults. This is probably a bit too much of a tall order, especially because I don't disagree with what she said - it was just something that was on my mind for the rest of the series.

However, Ghost Church also contains other, less dubious things that you won't easily find in other media pitched at a similar level. There are interviews with practising spiritualists. She attends a table-tipping class. One episode is largely dedicated to an interview of an Espiritismo scholar-practitioner with a sociology doctorate, and another to a writer who practices a Native American religion that Spiritualism appropriates from. It's only nine hours of audio content, so some things get touched on more than others, but I think it's great as a broad introduction. Jamie's background in more political podcasts lends itself well because she's readily able to contextualise the things she's discussing in the political context of the time of the events.

All in all, it was worth my time, and has given me some new things to try to learn more about.

Rating: Recommended if you enjoy soup. Or want to learn more about a niche religion that has influenced modern pagan practices quite a lot.

[mayaland]

Rating: Recommended if you enjoy soup. Or want to learn more about a niche religion that has influenced modern pagan practices quite a lot.

I enjoy soup and want to learn more about spiritualism! I've done the Wikidives on e.g. Blavatsky, but this sounds just up my alley, so probably others' as well. Thanks for sharing this review.