America’s “Second Salem,” you say? We’re on it! Aaron and Samantha dive in to explore the legends surrounding the town of Whitewater, Wisconsin. When they got down to the sources did they find evidence of witchcraft, cursed books, murder, and spiritualists? You’ll have to tune in to find out. The pair put their history skillz (yes, with a ‘z’) to the test in “Were There Witches in Whitewater?”.
Intro- 00:20 Whitewater Background- 02:15 The Legends- 04:29 Morris Pratt- 09:40 Pratt’s Spiritualist Temple- 12:27 Midway Break- 17:58 The Morris Pratt Institute- 23:26 Spiritualism 101- 26:21 Mary Worth- 38:38 Real Murder in Whitewater- 46:13 Wrapping It All Up- 52:45
In this episode, Samantha and Aaron step back from examining actual pieces of lore in order to share their own personal paranormal experiences. They examine the reasons why eye-witness testimonies of supernatural phenomena need to be handled with care, the ways their own experiences influence the way they interpret those from others, and how their training as historians has prepared them to analyze sources.
Time Stamps History of Paranormal Research- 2:20 Analyzing Sources- 13:46 Personal Stories- 15:55 Legend or Lie- 39:47 Interpreting the Paranormal- 44:06 The Desire to Have an Encounter- 54:07
Sources For this episode we relied on a lot of articles to help us explain some of the thoughts we had about why people believe in the paranormal, what can influence that belief, and the power of biases. In case you’d like to look at these, we’ve divided them into helpful categories.
Great Lakes Lore 