Enchanted Ground

November 5, 2018
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.