Enchanted Ground
The Spirit Room of Jonathan Koons
-
-
5.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $9.99
-
- $9.99
Publisher Description
In Enchanted Ground, Sharon Hatfield brings to life the true story of a nineteenth-century farmer-turned-medium, Jonathan Koons, one of thousands of mediums throughout the antebellum United States. In the hills outside Athens, Ohio, Koons built a house where it was said the dead spoke to the living, and where ancient spirits communicated the wisdom of the ages. Curious believers, in homespun and in city attire, traveled from as far as New Orleans to a remote Appalachian cabin whose marvels would rival any of P. T. Barnum’s attractions.
Yet Koons’s story is much more than showmanship and sleight of hand. His enterprise, not written about in full until now, embodied the excitement and optimism of citizens breaking free from societal norms. Reform-minded dreamers were drawn to Koons’s seances as his progressive brand of religion displaced the gloomy Calvinism of previous generations. As heirs to the Second Great Awakening, which stretched from New York State to the far reaches of the Northwest Territory, the curious, the faithful, and Koons himself were part of a larger, uniquely American moment that still marks the cultural landscape today.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Hatfield (Never Seen the Moon: The Trials of Edith Maxwell) ushers readers into the seances of the 19th century's antebellum spiritualist movement via the story of Jonathan Koons, an Athens County, Ohio, medium. Taking a nonjudgmental stance on the veracity of Koons and his contemporaries' claims to be in touch with the dead, Hatfield argues that mediums represented "the counterculture of their time" and a shift toward a more open concept of spirituality than the prevailing Christian ethos. According to Hatfield's meticulous research, Koons, a family man who was once a carpenter and farmer, began communing with spirits in 1852. Soon after, he built his dedicated "spirit room," where otherworldly visitors overturned furniture, played ghostly music, and revealed body parts that shone eerily in the dark. Eventually, despite accusations of fraud, Koons garnered a national reputation and made believers of many visitors. Though Hatfield often gets bogged down in details this is more a record of extensive research than a gripping narrative she is convincing in showing that at least one medium, instead of "exploiting the bereaved and naive," performed a valuable therapeutic function in troubled times. Readers seeking spooky tales of the other side will be disappointed, but students of American cultural history may find interest here.
