Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Western New York—including the city of Buffalo—was the breeding ground for a surprising number of new religious movements, utopian communities, and superstitious ideas. The Fox sisters launched spiritualism in the Rochester area, but several other threads of the spiritualist movement stem from Western New York. In this talk Stuart Vyse will take you on a tour of this fascinating burned-over district.
This talk was part of the exciting lineup for CSICon 2026. CSICon is the premiere conference for science and skepticism.
Learn more at: csiconference.org
Stuart Vyse is a psychologist and author who, from November 2022 to July 2023, served as the interim editor for Skeptical Inquirer magazine, where he also writes its “Behavior & Belief” column. His books include The Uses of Delusion: Why It’s Not Always Rational to Be Rational, Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition, and Superstition: A Very Short Introduction.
This talk took place during CSICon in Buffalo, NY on June 12, 2026
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Western New York—including the city of Buffalo—was the breeding ground for a surprising number of new religious movements, utopian communities, and superstitious ideas. The Fox sisters launched spiritualism in the Rochester area, but several other threads of the spiritualist movement stem from Western New York. In this talk Stuart Vyse will take you on a tour of this fascinating burned-over district.
This talk was part of the exciting lineup for CSICon 2026. CSICon is the premiere conference for science and skepticism.
Learn more at: csiconference.org
Stuart Vyse is a psychologist and author who, from November 2022 to July 2023, served as the interim editor for Skeptical Inquirer magazine, where he also writes its “Behavior & Belief” column. His books include The Uses of Delusion: Why It’s Not Always Rational to Be Rational, Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition, and Superstition: A Very Short Introduction.
This talk took place during CSICon in Buffalo, NY on June 12, 2026
