Empire of skulls, p.15
Empire of Skulls, page 15
A few days after first connecting with Cornell, Edward again passed into the superior condition to relay new messages. With his siblings around him and the spirit working through him, he rose from the séance circle, grabbed a pen and paper, and walked into the adjoining room, which was completely dark. He stayed in there for about ten minutes, then returned to the group and revealed the spirit’s thoughts on social reform. The note read, in part:
The greatest good which you can now do is not to try permanently to perfect society; not to fling your seed to the waste, but to clear the ground, and prepare it ready to receive the seed, and after the ground is cleared, you will best know what kind of seed it is best adapted for. Look back to the various and systematic changes which society has thus far undergone, and you will at once see your true position.
Enabling the spirits to write messages like this was a practice known as automatic writing, which usually produced broad, amorphous, philosophical messages just like Edward received. Seemingly uninterested in specific directions and clear details, the spirits were more like cosmic fortune cookies, complete with squishy generalities that appeared interesting at first but were, on closer inspection, largely forgettable.
That didn’t bother Edward, Charlotte, and members of the séance circle who gathered regularly at the Fowler mansion. Throughout late 1850 and early 1851, the group met once or twice per week and grew to include several friends and neighbors. On December 4, Horace Greeley himself showed up to the séance with none other than the young Kate Fox, who moved in with Greeley and his wife after the other Fox sisters had left New York. At the séance, with Greeley and Kate holding hands around the table with the others, Edward passed into the superior condition, connected with Mr. Cornell, and wrote down a philosophical treatise on the state of the human soul.40
With all these philosophical insights swirling around New York, the Fowlers saw in Spiritualism the same thing they saw in phrenology—namely, the promise of improvement. Spiritualism, phrenology, magnetism, water cure—they were allied sciences of progress and social change. Little wonder, then, that the Fowlers brought Spiritualism into their publication list. In fact, even before the Fox sisters started the Spiritualist movement, Orson and Lorenzo had taken a keen interest in the work of Andrew Jackson Davis, the Poughkeepsie Seer. In 1847, Lorenzo gave Davis a phrenological examination and published the results in The American Phrenological Journal. Davis had a “highly active” mind, Lorenzo reported, and was “easily influenced or awakened by external objects or internal emotions.” His organs of Hope, Combativeness, and Destructiveness were all fully developed, allowing him to push through obstacles that stood in the way of truth. He spoke plainly and candidly about the realities of the spirit world, doing “full justice to his cause.” Yet the most remarkable feature of his head was his “intuitive perception of human nature, of motives, and the result of causes.”41
When interest in Spiritualism took off in the wake of the Fox sisters, the Fowlers doubled down on their connection to Davis. Orson published a series of articles in The American Phrenological Journal about the relationship between phrenology and clairvoyance, insisting that the new sciences fit perfectly together: “Is not the soul endowed with a spiritual entity in perfect keeping with this clairvoyant power? Phrenology says YES.” In 1851, as Charlotte was conducting séances with Edward, Fowlers and Wells published a new book by Andrew Jackson Davis, The Philosophy of Spiritual Intercourse. It contained chapters titled “God’s Universal Providence,” “The Miracles of This Age,” “The Guardianship of Spirits,” “The Discernment of Spirits,” and “A Voice from the Spirit-Land.” Orson reviewed the book and concluded that “no person can cease from their perusal without having an increase of Faith, Hope, Charity, and positive Knowledge. We commend the volume to all who desire information on these vastly important, but misunderstood, subjects.”42
More books on Spiritualism, clairvoyance, and insights from beyond the grave followed Davis’s book. Fowlers and Wells published Immortality Triumphant (1852) by John Dods; Supernal Theology and Life in the Spheres (1852) by Owen Warren; and The Macrocosm and Microcosm; or, the Universe Without and the Universe Within (1852) by William Fishbough, among other titles. Orson never considered Spiritualism on par with phrenology, physiology, and magnetism in terms of importance for human knowledge, but it was significant enough to play a key role in the output of the publishing giant that Fowlers and Wells was becoming.
FOR HIS PART, Edward continued to channel spirits and to pronounce messages of promise and progress. In August 1851, he, Charlotte, and other Fowler siblings, along with a half dozen compatriots in the Spiritualist movement, formed a group known as the New York Circle, which dedicated itself to “making careful observations concerning modern Spiritual phenomena.” The phenomena the group witnessed, all done through Edward’s mediumship, included levitating tables and chairs, sofas sputtering across floors, colorful lights dancing through the dark, objects whipping across the room, and an endless stream of messages.43
Edward even started writing messages in foreign languages that he did not know. The first was in Spanish, the second in Hebrew, the third in Sanskrit. Finally, on November 24, a spirit showed up to explain what these foreign messages meant.
“I am happy to announce to you,” the spirit of Benjamin Franklin told the group, “that the project which has engaged our attention for some years has at last been in part accomplished.” According to Franklin, a new Spiritualist era was about to begin, and Edward’s foreign-language messages were a beacon light to the world.
A couple weeks later, Edward entered the superior condition again and received a new command.
“Edward,” the spirits said, “put that paper on your table, and we will write a sentiment and subscribe our names; then you may sign it too.”
Edward did as he was told, placing pen and paper on the séance table before heading off to bed. When he and the others awoke in the morning, a sagacious message had appeared on the paper: “Peace, but not without freedom.” It was signed by the founding fathers—Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Hancock, Washington, and many others. When members of the New York Circle obtained a book that showed what the original signatures of the founders looked like, they excitedly reported that the signatures matched those on Edward’s piece of paper. It was important news. The spirits of the founding fathers could see the path the United States was on in the 1850s, a decade that would end in bloody civil war. Peace was the ultimate goal, the founders announced, but to get there the nation first needed freedom for everyone within its borders. Apparently, the founders had become abolitionists in the afterlife.
The New York Circle continued until at least 1854. But once Edward earned his medical degree in 1855 and faced new career prospects, the spirits came around less often, which was probably for the best. Doubts began to swirl around Edward’s abilities. Both Samuel Wells and Nelson Sizer were skeptical, although they had no interest in debunking him. At the same time, newspapers and periodicals began lambasting Edward and other so-called Spiritualists for perpetrating obvious frauds. Then, at one point, at least according to a relative on the Wells side of the family, Edward admitted to faking the whole spirit-medium thing. A young man caught up in a lark, he decided to focus on his medical career and to leave the spirits behind.44
Yet even as interest in Spiritualism waned among the Fowlers, excitement about phrenology was reaching a fever pitch, bringing a cavalcade of celebrities around the family—and making them celebrities in their own right.
CHAPTER SIX
CELEBRITY SCIENCE
NEW YORK’S CHIEF OF POLICE ARRIVED AT THE VENUE three hours early, leading a column of fifty men to the front of Castle Garden. The cops formed a tight line from State Street, where the carriages lined up, to the venue itself, which was accessible only via a walkway that connected Battery Park to the little island on which Castle Garden stood. When the carriages pulled up, elegantly dressed New Yorkers hopped off and strode through the phalanx of police, completely aflutter of what they were about to experience.
Despite the throngs of gawkers who could not afford a ticket but still wanted to catch a glimpse of this historic moment, no real violence broke out. The biggest disruption came from the hooligans in the harbor surrounding Castle Garden. Packed together on rickety boats and drunk off alcohol and oysters, they strained their ears to hear whatever they could. When that didn’t work, they hooted and hollered, playing fifes and drums as loud as they could to draw attention away from the performance. At one point, some of the hooligans even tried to make landfall and storm Castle Garden, but police were able to push most of them back. The few who got on land were quickly arrested.
Inside the venue, the elegantly dressed New Yorkers could hear some of the hooting and hollering outside, but it was the spectacle before them that truly captured their attention. Brightly colored lamps marked different seating sections and created a pulsating visual display across the auditorium. The interior columns and balcony were adorned with resplendent works of art trucked in just for this occasion. Hanging from the ceiling were massive chandeliers that refracted colorful light from the lamps and seemed to dance and sparkle in midair. Then there was the stage itself, expertly crafted atop a platform built over the orchestra pit and reinforced with a sounding board instead of a curtain to improve acoustics. A sign made of freshly picked flowers hung from the balcony and announced: “Welcome, Sweet Warbler.”
Finally, at eight in the evening on September 11, 1850, the program began. There were two opening acts. Julius Benedict conducted a piece from his opera The Crusaders, then Giovanni Belletti, the renowned baritone, sang songs from Maometto Secondo. But these performances were simply prelude to the main attraction, which brought forth a moment of “breathless expectation.” Adorned in a simple yet stylish white dress, her hair braided, her makeup delicate, the Swedish Nightingale stepped onto the stage carrying a hefty bouquet. Then, pandemonium. Thunderous applause lasted for several minutes as the crowd waved hats, hands, and handkerchiefs and threw flowers at her feet. The “divine songstress” looked out at the thousands before her with “that perfect bearing, that air of all dignity and sweetness, blending a childlike simplicity and half-trembling womanly modesty with the beautiful confidence of Genius and serene wisdom of Art.”
Jenny Lind, the Swedish Nightingale, had experienced scenes like this countless times before, but only in Europe. This was her first time in the United States, and it felt incredible. After the crowd quieted, she began to sing. For the next ninety minutes she enchanted New Yorkers just as she had enraptured the aristocracy of the Old World. Her voice—“so pure, so sweet, so fine, so whole and all-prevailing”—enveloped Castle Garden. One paper called her “the greatest prodigy in song that ever appeared upon the theatre of the world.” Hers was a voice that “cannot be described” but “must be heard” to be understood.1
When Lind brought the performance to a close, the crowd clamored for more. But surprisingly it wasn’t for more songs—it was for another person. “Where’s Barnum?” they roared.
P. T. Barnum had engineered the evening to perfection. Everyone knew that he was responsible for bringing Jenny Lind to America, a point that he made sure the papers included when covering the concert. Although he had long used the press to drum up attention for his schemes, this occasion was different. Jenny Lind was his first high-brow attraction, his attempt to change his reputation from a perpetrator of humbuggery to a purveyor of taste and class. And the nation loved him for it.
When Barnum heard the audience clamoring for him, he smiled brightly, marched onto the stage, and took his place next to Lind. “I have but one favor to ask of you,” Barnum announced, “and that is, that in the presence of that angel, I may be allowed to sink where I really belong—into utter insignificance.” It was a great way to call attention to himself by appearing to deflect attention away from himself. But Barnum couldn’t stop there; he had an important announcement to make. Just that morning, Lind had told him that she would not accept her portion of the profits from the performance, estimated to be around $10,000 (almost $400,000 in today’s dollars). She would instead “devote every farthing of it tomorrow morning for charitable purposes.” Pandemonium once again. Lind’s performance and selfless generosity ushered in a new “epoch in the musical annals of America,” the Brooklyn Daily Eagle concluded.2
Thousands of people had packed inside Castle Garden to hear Jenny Lind sing. One was Lorenzo Fowler. As was his wont, he surveyed the heads around him as he waited for the show to begin. What were the characters of the people fortunate enough to buy tickets to this epoch-making event? He noticed one man in particular seated just down the row. The man’s head, Lorenzo later recalled, “was predominating in the upper portion,” and he seemed to vibrate with nervous excitement before the concert started. Once the Swedish Nightingale began her siren song, the man’s nervous energy dissipated, and he let the music wash over him. Ninety minutes later, Lorenzo looked down the row and saw the man grasping his head. “Oh, my God,” the man exclaimed, “what an angel!” It was a perfect choice of words. Lind’s voice had “stimulated his whole moral frame,” the phrenologist reflected. Indeed, her singing “awakens sentiment, and makes one feel that he has a soul, because she has Veneration and Benevolence; and when she sings she becomes transported almost beyond this world.” Perhaps she was an angel.3
A year after listening to Lind at Castle Garden, Lorenzo published a detailed reading of her in The American Phrenological Journal. In one of the longest profiles printed up to that point, he described Lind’s moral and social organs as surprisingly well developed, which meant that she sang not for herself, or for wealth, but for the improvement of her audiences—“radiating the light and warmth of her joyous nature upon others.” Even more significant were the organs that structured her sturdy brow line. With “a great prominence of the outer angle of the eye-brows,” which creates a “bold ridge” above the eyes that “makes the forehead in that region appear deformed,” Lind’s Order, Number, Time, and Tune resulted in an unparalleled voice.
Yet equally as important as her voice was her Veneration and Spirituality, which attuned her talents to the musical connection between the heavens and the earth. With “a decidedly religious cast to her mind,” her “whole soul and body” come together “to make up her musical talent.” Jenny Lind was the greatest singer of nineteenth century, and perhaps of all time, because her entire constitution—from her temperament to her organs to her mental functions—meshed perfectly together.4
To Lorenzo, Jenny Lind was unqualified proof of phrenology, and not just because of her mental faculties. True, she was naturally endowed with musical abilities, but she also worked hard at her craft, overcoming many setbacks on her road to superstardom—a point Lorenzo made clear in the biographical sketch that accompanied her phrenological profile. Through focused mental exercises, she improved her nature to the point where Order, Number, Time, and Tune pushed out on her brow. At the same time, she advanced her relationship with God and enhanced her moral organs so she could take her listeners on a spiritual, otherworldly journey.
The Fowlers relished the opportunity to promote phrenology through the success of celebrities such as Lind—famous figures who got to where they were because of how they exercised their mental faculties, grew their organs, and improved their natural endowments. Indeed, countless public figures appeared in Fowler lectures, demonstrations, and publications as proof of the science’s power. And the American people ate it up, devouring story after story about famous individuals who visited the Phrenological Cabinet, who embraced phrenology, and whose achievements proved the exact ideas the Fowlers were peddling. It was a brilliant strategy for building their brand and supporting the science, as it placed phrenology at the forefront of the rapidly emerging celebrity culture of the time—the first true celebrity culture in American history.5
WHEN LORENZO BOUGHT a ticket to Castle Garden to hear the heavenly voice of Jenny Lind, he wanted to experience the music and to support his friend. Barnum and the Fowlers had known each other for at least a decade by that point, and there was a strong bond between them. Although some denounced Barnum for his hoaxes and hoodwinks, all in the name of profit, the Fowlers saw him as an honest broker of the strange, unfamiliar, mysterious side of life. They were interested in much the same thing. Indeed, Barnum and the Fowlers aimed ultimately at engaging the masses. Barnum did it with oddities; the Fowlers did it with science. Both did it in the name of democracy. And they did it next door to each other.
If you were standing near the corner of Broadway and Ann Street facing north in the fall of 1842, you would have seen the Fowlers’ Phrenological Cabinet on your right—its rows of skulls staring out at you from the first floor of Clinton Hall. To your left you would have seen Barnum’s American Museum, adorned at the time with an eighteen-foot-tall banner announcing perhaps the most shocking discovery in human history: Mermaids were real. The banner depicted beautiful, bare-breasted maidens with long flowing hair and fish tails. Their lusty countenance beckoned visitors inside. Yet once curious spectators got through the doors, they quickly discovered that Barnum’s mermaid, which he dubbed the Feejee Mermaid, did not match the busty fish ladies on the banner. A small, shriveled, Frankenstein-like monstrosity, the Feejee Mermaid had been handcrafted from parts of a monkey, ape, and salmon. Barnum had bought it from a shady exhibitor in Boston, knowing he could make a killing by getting people to pay twenty-five cents to see it. And he did. Even if museum-goers departed his business miffed at the hoax, they had already paid him, and he was hard at work concocting another oddity that would bring them back.6
