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While researching her book about 19th-century farmer-medium Jonathan Koonsā€”whose seances on the outskirts of Athens drew multitudes of spiritual seekers and gawkers from across the countryā€”Sharon Hatfield was struck by Koonsā€™ belief that the ground of his farm itself enabled his communications with the dead.

ā€œHe thought that there was something different about the landscape hereā€”the minerals or magnetic properties of the ground,ā€ Hatfield said. She was so drawn to Koonsā€™ ideas about the land itself that she titled her book .

A young Koons moved to remote southeast Ohioā€”then considered the Westā€”in 1835, from Pennsylvania. In 1852, he converted to spiritualism, the alternative religious movement that by then was sweeping the nation. After he built his ā€œspirit room,ā€ which used musical instruments and other apparatuses intended to communicate with the dead, he and his entire family became known as mediums, and their following surged.

In Koons, Hatfield, MS ā€™91, found a subject that allowed her to illuminate a counterculture that flourished throughout the United States, Britain, and elsewhere in the 19th century. Hatfield, who describes them as ā€œVictorian hippies,ā€ says spiritualists were social reformers. ā€œThey wanted a less punitive vision of Christianity. They advocated for womenā€™s rights and the abolition of slavery, among other things. They did not believe in hell, preferring to think that everyone had a chance to progress spiritually even after death.ā€

Hatfield relished recovering the story of an influential but largely forgotten local. ā€œWe pride ourselves here in Athens on being a progressive community, as were the spiritualists. But beyond that, Jonathan Koons had a personal message that extends far beyond our region: Believe in yourself, learn to appreciate your divine nature, and find your own voice. That is what he tried to do.ā€