Welcome to episode #44, A Séance for Strings, featuring Iowa-born child prodigy, psychic violinist, composer, music educator, and author, Florizel von Reuter (1890-1985). Following an immensely successful career touring American and Europe as a child violinist, Reuter and his mother became devout séance practitioners during the 1920s. Through his mother, the medium, Reuter communicated with diverse composers and musicians using a unique séance device called the Hesperus-Additor. Through these spirit messages Reuter’s violin performance was psychically enhanced. He also wrote several books on medial communications and music, as well as fiction and a memoire of his experiences in Hitler-era Germany, where he helped German Jews evade the Nazis. Eventually walking away from his psychic interests, Reuter would focus on composing, teaching, and performing well into his 90s. This episode looks into the history of the planchette and ouija board, the “odic force,” and a truly inspired violinist. Welcome to the voice of the Od...

Welcome to episode 43, "The Prayerful Organist," featuring radio celebrity, virtuoso organist, Religious Science minister, and early pioneer of "new age" music, Irma Glen (1908-1982). After successful vaudeville music tours in her adolescence, Glen found a passion for the organ and became a renowned presence on radio and in the silent film theatres of Chicago. She would then become a household name through her role in diverse programs on NBC radio. Having studied comparative religion since childhood, Glen took to the new thought philosophy of Earnest Holmes' Religious Science during the 1950s. She soon became a minister and founded her own churches in California. But she would leave formal ministry in her later years to pioneer her unique "Prayer-Music." This episode explores Glen's life, the philosophy of Religious Science, and the incredible organ and spoken word music she recorded in the 1960s and 70s. Welcome to the Golden Melody...

Welcome to episode 42, "The Coloratura of Celestial Choice," featuring Spanish-Italian American opera singer, Amelita Galli-Curci (1882-1963). Through her opera career she accrued international renown and fortune, but this was cut short by a vocal injury in the 1930s. While her opera recordings have remained a touchstone in the genre up to the present, less remembered is her public embrace of Swedenborgian theology and Kriya Yoga, for both of which she served as a significant representative and devoted instrument. Welcome to the singing heart...

Welcome to Episode 41, "The Ghost Dance," featuring Native American prophet Wovoka (1856-1932). A descendent of the Numu language family and Paiute tribe in Nevada, Wovoka had a vision in 1889 in which he visited heaven and communed with the spirits of his ancestors. The spirits told him that by performing the “Ghost Dance,” the white man’s violent oppression would subside and the native tribes would thrive following an apocalyptic resurrection of Native life. The rapid spread of the Ghost Dance across the nation was so threatening to white oppressors that it compelled them to even greater atrocities, resulting in the Massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. Wovoka’s prophetic religion, music, and dance, however, still remain today. Through the life of Wovoka and his Paiute heritage this episode explores the meaning and music of the Ghost Dance tradition. Welcome to a prophecy of hope...

Welcome to episode 40, "The Prophet of Swing," featuring Portuguese American pianist, bandleader, numerologist, and metaphysical philosopher Vincent Lopez (1895-1975). Raised in an extreme Roman Catholic home, Lopez left the monastic path for ragtime piano as a child. One of the first jazz bandleaders to make use of America's emerging radio technology, Lopez's radio program, "Lopez Speaking," made him a household name across the country. While the success of his orchestra lead to a million dollar deal. Lopez attributed his success to numerology, astrology, and the "power of thought vibration." He would go on to publish books on prophecy and numerology, practices he often incorporated into his concerts. His song selections frequently emphasized dreams and cosmic imagery; while Lopez's 1944 "Musical Horoscope" is one of the earliest examples of "zodiac jazz." Welcome to the hidden number...

* Featuring special guest, Sarah Cahill, on piano. 

Welcome to episode 39, "The Everlasting Gospel Revelation," featuring preacher, painter, and musician, Sister Gertrude Morgan (1900-1980). Raised in a poor Baptist family in Alabama, a series of divine revelations lead Sister Morgan to paint, sing, and preach in the Baptist-Holiness-Pentecostal tradition. Her visions also lead her to New Orleans, where she founded an orphanage and her own house of worship. Though she became most known for her street performances, where with guitar or tambourine she sang and preached through hand-painted paper megaphones. Her paintings and music were picked up by the Preservation Hall in New Orleans and diverse galleries and museums, gaining widespread attention and fans as notable as Andy Warhol. This episode looks into the musicalization of the holy spirit in the African American church. We'll look at the Baptist, Holiness, and Pentecostal movements as well as the musical evangelism of early 20th century New Orleans, where Sister Morgan sang, painted, poeticised and prophesied the New Jerusalem to come...

Welcome to episode #38, "The Black Hawk Chant," featuring Mother Leafy Anderson (1887-1927) and Mother Catherine Seals (1874-1930). Coming from Chicago to New Orleans, Anderson founded her own church, which fused spiritualism, Catholicism, and jazz into her services, while seeking to uplift women into leadership roles. Worshipping the spirit of Native American Sauk leader Black Hawk, Anderson initiated the Spiritual church movement, which still exists today. Following her death, trombonist Catherine Seals took over, founding the Temple of the Innocent Blood in the Lower Ninth Ward. She continued Anderson's teachings but incorporated hoodoo folk magic. While her jazz services would feature significant artists like Ernie Cagnalotti and Harold Duke Dejan. This episode explores the African American Spiritual church movement, the Mardi Gras Indian tradition, and their musical expressions in New Orleans, Louisiana. Welcome to the Handa Wanda...

Welcome to episode 37, "Singing for the Orishas," featuring Afro-Cuban Santería/Lucumí singer, Merceditas Valdes (1922-1996). Raised in a musical household alongisde Yoruba and Cuban traditions, Valdez took to Afro-Cuban Lucumí music and religious practice as a teenager in Havana. Working alongside leading figures, Valdes became the voice and face for the AfroCubanismo movement, with her recordings ceremonially celebrating the divine and ancestral spirits, or Orishas, of Lucumí and Yoruba tradition. However, the Cuban Communist Party would silence her voice for 20 years. Freed from suppression in 1980s, Valdes would release several Lucumí albums before her death in 1996. This episode explores the world of Afro-Cuban Lucumí religion and its ceremonial music tradition through one of the tradition's most revered song leaders. Welcome to the way of the spirits...