3.5 stars.The title and tag line of this book are a misnomer - its less a history of Spiritualism's women having a voice,  and more of an exploration of "spooky Americana" and how the contemporary commercialization of ghosts, witches, holistic medicine, "voodoo" and psychics has roots in new religious movements (such as Spiritualism).

I do appreciate the cultural/historical contexts of the Civil War, women's suffrage, abolitionism, eugenics, and colonialism/racism/white saviorism. I also enjoyed learning about figures like Harriet Wilson, Leonora Piper, etc. But overall the book lacks a cohesive narrative or point of view. The author hasn't decided whether this is feminist perspective, spiritual/wellness industry critique, historical research, travelogue, or creative nonfiction. She dips her toe into a variety of perspectives and topics with skepticism and snark, while insisting that she's withholding judgment.

She is very forthcoming with her critiques of everything from Disneyland's Haunted Mansion, to ghost tours, to chiropractors but she gives very weak framing of the contemporary, sincere religious practice of Spiritualism, Witchcraft/Neo-paganism, Hoodoo/Rootwork and syncretic religions such as Vodun, Orisha, Santeria, and Candomblé (which she lumps altogether under the problematic term "voodoo" - without the thoughtful critique of this word, as she offers in other sections). She mentions Christian Science in passing but neglects Theosophy and the entire New Thought movement.

This book might work better for me if she explored these religions, through a feminist lens, as a means of empowerment for women through American history, social upheaval and change. Instead she floats through Lily Dale, Salem, and New Orleans without really connecting with the people she meets or their beliefs or practices in a meaningful way. Her personal stories were distracting as there was no real personal growth arc or revelations. I don't dislike the author's writing persay, the book just lacks a clear enough structure, theme, or through line for me. Still worth the read for all the information presented though.

When We Spoke to the Dead had a promising premise but unfortunately it just felt like it was all over the place. There were some interesting facts but I had a hard time keeping engaged due to the writing style and how the facts and history were delievered in its writing.

The author needed to have a stronger editor who would make them actually write about women and spirituality rather than bouncing from topic to topic. Reads more like Carter's own memoir with some religious history interspersed than the other way around. Spiritualism is a really interesting look at the United States and the author was unable to give it the full treatment it deserved.

Tracing the Spiritualist movement from its 1840s origins with the Fox Sisters to modern-day manifestations of mysticism and self-help, this book explores how communication with the dead became a powerful force in American culture, influencing politics, feminism, and the enduring human desire for connection with the unseen. I love the author voice in this fascinating and entertaining book.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

I was given at advance reading copy (arc) of this book by NetGalley.com in exchange for a fair review. I began this book thinking I would learn about the public's fascination of Spiritualism during the late 1800s and early 1900s, with a focus on women. Instead, I found a lot of rambling and disjointed information. The author emphasized her own work in sideshows numerous times, which was distracting. I don't feel the story of Spiritualism was told thoroughly. Many of the people she wrote about were often left dangling with no end to their tales. According to the author, it all began in the 1840s with the Fox Sisters and some mysterious knocking sounds. It escalated from there and the nation, as well as the world, was gripped by Spiritualism, which seemed to given women a voice. I had high hopes after reading this part, but the remainder the book fell short as we jumped from one Spiritualist to another at a rapid pace. In addition, the footnotes in the back of the books were confusing with the author's own notes. It was a mixed bag and I gave up trying to read them. Overall, the topic was interesting, but the storytelling was lacking.

Have you considered the rise of spiritualism at the same time as the rise of women's suffrage? I hadn't. This book examines the suffrage movement in the United States and the rise and fall of spiritualism and other forms of communication with the dead; as voices were heard in one area, they began to be heard in another. However, white people typically excluded BIPOC women.

The book doesn't shy away from discussing the racism that suffused the movements and the United States at the time, though I wish she had gone more in-depth on that. It's often not even discussed in many history books.

I learned a lot by reading this book, and I am curious to learn more.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC!

I definitely judged this book by its cover (and title), and I’m glad I did because I really enjoyed reading this book. I think readers who are coming just to be spooked out and hear ghosts stories could be disappointed, as that is not what this is. This book really focuses on the history of seances and spiritualism and how feminism played a role in both. I really enjoyed learning about the history but I especially liked the tone of the author. She was so snarky and funny in her narratives that it was like a friend telling me these stories.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest rating and review.

The title and cover of When We Spoke to the Dead intrigued me. I have read Carter’s other book, The Red Menace, and thoroughly enjoyed it, so I was excited to read another work of hers.

The title and genre are a little misleading. I would classify this more as a memoir with a history subplot than a history book. Carter presents her personal experiences, feelings, and opinions throughout the book. There is no citation section. The numbered references tend to be anecdotal in nature and do not cite a credible source.

If this book was marketed as a memoir I think I would have really enjoyed it. Carter is funny and personal in her writing, a trait I highly enjoy.

Thanks to NetGalley & Sourcebooks for the e-ARC of this book.

Ilise, or Lady Aye, takes us on a historical tour through the American Spiritualism movement in its multifaceted, messy glory. What I appreciate most about her approach was her open-mindedness. She adds enough detail from her own life to make it personal, but keeps the focus on the history. The footnotes are a lot of fun and I recommend following along with them.

This book is about Spiritualism, the movement in the mid-19th Century that lasted until the early 20th, and, akin to New Thought, won, as so many of its precepts are so blended into conventional wisdom (in the United States at least) that seeing it takes effort.

In particular, the book is a Feminist history of Spiritualism, focusing on major female players, and primarily the Fox Sisters, though it includes people like Madame Laveau to establish that Black America invented everything worthwhile about the U.S..

History is mixed with journalism and a sprinkle of travelog as the author interviews current practitioners and current and historical sites. It veers into the gonzo as the inciting event is the author's own loss of her father, and the author's grief in general about him and about others is an companion story.

The writing is stellar. Insightful and sharp, it makes for a real page-turner. I love it to the point of envy. Contra some other reviewers, I thought the more journalistic (and journal-y) parts to be the best in the book. The sense of personal narrative and insight works, both telling a good story and providing interstitial material that connects up bits that might otherwise come over as forced. It feels awesome.

As for it as a history, it is flawed. The premise is great. There is a lot of material here. The section on Beecher–Tilton is well-executed. The author is willing to take a go at the philosophy of science questions that paranormal research has influenced, which I think is a topic worth better recognition, and something that is often avoided due to its difficulty. The history of chiropractic practice never ever gets old. But the book failed my citation dive test repeatedly. There are marvelously unfounded assertions here, not necessarily wrong but either offered up without critical care or without supporting evidence, occasionally (as with sexuality) contradictory in its way to present the subjects of the tale in a better light.

See, what rattles my chains is the "both sides"-ing. I specifically had big hopes of this book in that I understand the author was a performer, and if there is one place where the 'to catch a thief' rule applies, it is with the supernatural. It is as if my dead mom was global warming, where people who otherwise show great intelligence and expertise lose their ***** critical facility and make absolute fools of themselves. A huckster will see the trick right away and not get taken.

There is a manner in which I get personally riled up about it. The author suggests that Spiritualism and its derivatives should be looked at like a lot of history, as a mixture of good and bad. I cannot accept that during wartime, with an anti-science administration propelled to power through conspiratorial thinking. But in a more general manner, I think that it breaks the author's project. It is only under con and hustle that spiritualism can bear a Feminist interpretation.

To throw the title back at the author, if there are ghosts, then American women were silent. Teaching the question devalues what sort of skill and canny that these women had. Even if you dial it back to a benign ignorance on their part, and a sort of desire to participate in the religious experience, the result is to devalue the agency that these women were stealing like Prometheus, and instead paint them like copycats of more patriarchal religious experience.

Instead, the book's route is to poke at the foma, and note the weird things that happen, which...well, there is a moment in the closing chapter that blows the author's credibility for me, in her acceptance of a cold reading that, based on all the facts I know about the author, would be about as risky as saying to BookToker that they had strong feelings about The Secret History.

And that is the thing, as a memoir or document of lived experience, great! I want that sort of material. It is fun and I want to read more of it and more like it. As a way of interpreting the past, not so much.

My thanks to the author, Ilise S. Carter, for writing the book, and to the publisher, Sourcebooks, for making the ARC available to me.

L oved the topic, didn't love the tone of the book, It kind of came off a little girl-bossy. I also felt like the author intertwined her own life a little too much. I was expecting a little more of a serious tone.

The title and cover certainly piqued my interest, as I had recently read another book on Transcendalism.

I was hoping to learn more about Spiritualism as a movement, and was intrigued by the historical aspects promised. However, I felt that the author inserted herself into the narrative too often, and presented her opinions and personal feelings as facts. Some of her connections -- voodoo, politics, Poe, Houdini -- were tenuous at best.

Still, I'm glad for the opportunity to preview it and learn something new!

Fascinating at times, especially the chapters on the Fox Sisters, Salem, and New Orleans voodoo—those sections really showed how spiritualism intersected with feminism and politics. But the book leans heavily on the author’s ruminations, which slowed the pace and made me skim. I wanted more storytelling, less opinion. Still, it’s a thought-provoking look at how women used séances to carve out a voice in a world that didn’t want to hear them.

When We Spoke to the Dead is a rich, atmospheric dive into the world of séances, spiritualism, and the strange line between performance and belief. Ilise S. Carter blends cultural history, biography, and investigative journalism into something utterly compelling—a book that’s as much about the living as it is about the dead.
From the first chapter, I was hooked by Carter’s voice: sharp, engaging, and unafraid to examine both the spectacle and sincerity of talking to the other side. She brings historical figures and forgotten moments to life with vivid detail, from the early spiritualist movements to modern mediums, while also interrogating the cultural forces—grief, curiosity, skepticism—that keep the practice alive.

What I loved most is that Carter resists easy conclusions. She doesn’t set out to debunk or blindly believe; instead, she invites the reader to sit in the mystery. Along the way, she explores the intersections of gender, power, performance, and faith, showing how séances often reflected larger social shifts.

If you’re fascinated by occult history, the psychology of belief, or the theatricality of the supernatural, When We Spoke to the Dead is a captivating, thought-provoking read. It’s smart, stylish, and brimming with the kind of strange, hidden histories that stay with you long after the last page.

This is a fascinating read. I learned a lot about the topic of death and the differing attitudes towards it.

"Ghosts spoke. Women listened. Everything changed.

It began with whispers in a dimly lit room. In the 1840s, the Fox Sisters - and the legions of mediums they inspired - ignited the Spiritualist movement that swept through Victorian parlors and presidential campaigns alike. Contacting the dead wasn't merely a parlor trick: It was a political statement, a declaration of self that still echoes. Séances attracted suffragists and scientists, skeptics and charlatans, giving women a voice in a society that often refused to hear them. But as Spiritualism surged, it also blurred the lines between faith, fraud, feminism, and financial opportunity, drawing figures as varied as Harry Houdini, Victoria Woodhull, and even modern self-help gurus into its ever-expanding orbit.

From wartime séances to the rise of televangelists, from Victorian ghosts to goop-approved wellness rituals, When We Spoke to the Dead unearths the forgotten roots of today's obsession with manifestation, mysticism, and the power of belief. Exploring America's deep-seated hunger for the unseen - whether through politics, personal empowerment, or grief - this book traces how the supernatural, once condemned as heresy, became the ultimate commodity.

Step inside the séance room. The spirits have been waiting."

Such an interesting angle to take on Spiritualism. It makes it more empowerment than exploitation.

At 1/4 of the way through the book, I finally found something interesting. Most of this is conjecture and opinion. But the few paragraphs on Lincoln and spiritualism are interesting to say the least, and offer some drawing of the line between women and politics at the time. However, it comes from one woman's memoir - which isn't totally reliable as a single source. The author treats everything in this book as science or fact, and I found that completely off-putting. Also the thoughts are disjointed, and don't follow a linear path to showing me why there is a connection between women speaking to the dead and gaining power, other than having a way to get money. Honestly I could not finish this book. I got to about 37% and just could not finish it. This could have been a paper? As a book I find it confusing and her points don't make a lot of sense as she ties in side stories.

Our story starts in the 1840s with the Fox Sisters and extends to truly even now! the stories of mediums who have been inspired and the spiritualist movement!

This story covers 4 F’s

🧡 Feminism

⭐️ Faith

🎈 Fraud

💵 And Financial Opportunity

This story unravels the beliefs and attitudes of mystics, mysticism, and more! How spirits gave women a voice when one was not freely had! It also expands and explains upon spiritualism and witchcraft and how throughout history these two have been intertwined as well as explains their differences!

4⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thanks so much to NetGalley for the free Kindle book. My review is voluntarily given, and my opinions are my own.

While I am not convinced there are ghosts, I allow that it is possible. So I read these books, not because I believe, but because of the history behind it. Love learning about all different kinds of historical facts.

I really enjoyed the chapter on the Salem witch trials. Although I am sure I must have read about it at some point, I couldn't recall anything about the last person tried in Salem for being a witch. Killed, yes, but not tried. The whole thing was very interesting.

Also, I really loved reading about the divorce of Cora V.L. Hatch. Funny that I don't follow any celebrity drama, but I love reading about the historical stuff. I think it's because it's easier to find out what is actually true about people who have been dead for centuries than it is about people alive today.

Definitely would recommend this book, whether you are just a history buff or a true believer.

This wasn’t quite what I expected. I went in hoping for more witch history, but it leaned more into spiritualism and the roots of talking to the dead in America. That said, I still really enjoyed it. The way it tied séances to feminism, politics, and even modern self-help culture was fascinating. It’s more about belief, power, and how women carved space for themselves in a world that didn’t want to listen until the spirits made them. Creepy, empowering, and surprisingly relevant.