#99 Séance with Shannon Taggart

Séance by award winning photographer Shannon Taggart

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On January 21, 2020 Fahrusha welcomed award winning photographer Shannon Taggart to “Shattered Reality Podcast” to discuss her amazing book, SÉANCE. We discussed her photographs and how she came to document séances and the Spiritualist religion.

The book is broken into three parts: 1) Foreward by Dan Ackroyd, Introductions by Andreas Fischer, Tony Oursler and Shannon Taggart herself; 2) 150 different images taken over 20 years; 3) an image index written by Shannon which includes stories about each image in the book.

One of the amazing spirit photographs.

Fahrusha spoke about her graduate school experience with a very frightening spirit photograph taken accidentally by her thesis advisor Ed Pramuk, a wonderful artist.

Spiritualism is the first religion to use photography rather than painting for its iconography. Shannon brings together visual semiotics, surrealism, feminism, religion, spirituality and how media shapes reality. We at “Shattered Reality Podcast” spoke about how media shapes the perception of history in our interview with Diana Walsh Pasulka last year.

Shannon praised the work of George P. Hansen and his work on the Trickster. We discussed fraud in séances, and physical mediumship versus mental mediumship. Infrared photography is used by Taggart in some of her work.

Shannon Taggart, author and photographer.

Errata: The Ghostbusters actor is Harold Ramis not Harold Ramey. Apologies to Mr. Ramis.

Please feel free to comment. All polite comments will be answered. If you’d like to participate in our Listeners’ Corner, kindly contact fahrusha@fahrusha.com. You can speak your anomalous or paranormal experience on the show or if you’d prefer, Fahrusha will read it. You can give your name or be anonymous. Thanks.

C.M.Mayo, Spiritism and the Mexican Revolution #33

C. M. Mayo, author of Metaphysical Odyssey Into The Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and his secret book, Spiritist Manual.

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Kate Valentine and Fahrusha welcome award-winning author C.M. Mayo to “Shattered Reality Podcast” to discuss the role of Spiritism on the 1910 Mexican Revolution and related topics. Francisco I. Madero who briefly became the President of Mexico was a devout Spiritist. He was also a leader of the 1910 Mexican Revolution.

Mayo’s book Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican revolution: Francisco I. Madero and his secret book Spiritist Manual, is actually two books in one. The first part is an well researched examination of Francisco I. Madero’s Involvement with Spiritism (an offshoot of Spirtualism with some unusual twists) and its effect on the Mexican Revolution and thereby the history of Mexico. It also chronicles C.M. Mayo’s journey to understanding the very complex network of interrelationships between the players and philosophies responsible for the Mexican Revolution.

The second book within a book is C.M. Mayo’s painstaking translation of Madero’s Spiritist Manual which he wrote under the nom de plume “Bhîma”. It is an interesting look inside the mind of one of Mexico’s most famous leaders from a metaphysical perspective.

We think students of history as well as those interested in the paranormal will find this episode fascinating.

Errata: The 2016 SSE Symposium happened in Boulder, CO not Denver.

Book cover: Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and his secret book,Spiritist Manual.