@sus That’s it, that’s it exactly.
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@kate I read once that it wasn't a coincidence that the spiritualist and suffragist movements overlapped. Women were super super involved in the spiritualist movement. The piece argued that doing magic was a practice in agency - in believing that your thoughts and actions could influence the world. And even though magic isn't real, the practice of it helped women believe they could actually affect the world around them, powerfully. And then they did.
Gardening is a little like that I think, with more huckleberries.
i tried to find the original article i read on magic and suffragettes and failed (it was at least a decade ago), but found much more on the topic of spiritualism and the women’s suffrage movement - like how spiritualism let women participate in the public sphere and in positions of authority
When spirits inspired trance lecturers they often delivered communications on subjects they were concerned about during their own lifetime. For example, Benjamin Franklin was often channeled for the communication of scientific information. The notion that spirit mediums could communicate complex ideas was understood as evidence of spirit presence because most of the mediums were people who did not have formal education. Cora Scott was so popular and trusted because everything rested on the “fact” that a young woman could never produce the kinds of talks and speeches that she delivered. It had to be the voice of spirit because a young girl is just too dumb to come up with this stuff herself. Being in trance allowed women to say things that they could not say in the general public.
And it provided a means for women to travel and build community and organize together around all sorts of issues - including abolitionism.
