The Welcome to Spirits podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore every year, every Wednesday for eight years, Julia, we have gathered to share a drink and learn about a new story from around the world.

And this is the 400th of those stories, but I'm still Amanda.

And I'm still Julia.

This week, kind of to celebrate the fact that we've hit 400 episodes, which I still

can't believe. That is truly wild to me. Can't believe we've been doing 400 of these. We are going to

talk about a topic that may have inspired spirits as a concept and is something that just, I think,

is near and dear to both of our hearts.

I know enough about it because it's an interest of yours and the thing that I have since been like,

it's a fun fact I share at parties.

But I am so excited to get even deeper into this.

I remember, I think, proofreading for you, a college paper to have to do with this subject.

And so I am so, so excited 10 years later, plus from when you first learned about this story to dive deep into the Oneida community.

Hey.

Now, for those who don't know, the Oneida community is a religious cult that existed in the mid to late 1800s.

It was a perfectionist utopian attempt, society-wise.

There's just so much about this that is so interesting.

We just have to get started, Amanda.

We just have to, and it's,

it's not just any kind of utopian cult. It's the pride of New York State, by which I mean a deeply flawed example of the things that went on, what what settlers tried to do in sort of like

the, you know, just sort of industrializing sort of turn of the 19th century

of trying to perfect humanity through commerce, which involves to me the major subplot

of spirits, which is capitalism and its discontents because these folks ran a silver

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