When the Dead Talked...and the Smartest Minds in the World Listened

In the late 19th century, an estimated 11 million Americans believed in something called Spiritualism. They believed in it so ardently that it came to be thought of as a religion, and it became the seventh most popular religion in the United States. It's fundamental tenet-virtually its only tenet-was that it was possible for the living to communicate with the dead. America's philosopher king William James believed in it. Thomas Edison believed. Mark Twain believed. Countless number of scholars and scientists-although always a minority-also believed. Or, at the least, they believed that the belief should be tested, not scoffed at; that it might deserve to be part of university curricula, not the raw material of derisive humor. The same was true across the Atlantic, where Spiritualism attracted Marie Curie, Queen Victoria, two British Prime Ministers, Pope Pius IX and Russia's Czar Alexander II, among numerous others. Hundreds of the smartest minds in the world-geniuses all-formed societies in New York and London to investigate the notion of conversation with the deceased. They conducted scores of experiments under the most rigid, secure and sometimes even punishing of conditions, and some of what they discovered startled them. As When the Dead Talked . . . and the Smartest Minds in the World Listened, attests, it is still startling today. "Readers fascinated by how scientists in the last half of the 19th century thought about psychic phenomena will appreciate Burns's exploration of this fascinating history." - Publishers Weekly "Eric Burns has a gift for exploring the nooks and crannies and shadows of history that seldom get illuminated. When the Dead Talked . . . and the Smartest Minds in the World Listened [is] a vastly informative and entertaining book that can't help but leave a reader wondering where reality leaves off the magic begins." - Neal Gabler, author of Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity (Time magazine best non-fiction book of the year)