Fox sisters

The sisters Leah (1814-1890), Margaret or Maggie (1836-1893) and Kate Fox (1838-1892) played a big role in the creation of Spiritisme.

Mr Splitfoot, made like me!

During the night of March 31st 1848, in a small haunted famous farm, in Hydesville, close to the town of Rochester in the State of New York, Margaret and Kate, girls of Pasteur David Fox, establish a contact by conversations by blows struck with one supposed “spirit” named Mr. Splitfoot (Mr. Pied fourchu). Split = to split, divide

Mrs. Fox takes part in its turn with the set of his/her daughters. It then raises various questions with Mr. Splitfoot about the age of her daughters. The entity gives a bad answer: seven blows are struck instead of six. Mrs. Does Fox rest the question and adds “How much deaths? ” Six blows, then, after a pause, a more powerful blow. The spirit took account of a dead child at three years. The ages given are thus right.

The entity then states to name Charles B. Rosma, hawker assassinated in this house and whose corpse had been buried in the cellar from which come the blows. One excavates the ground of the cellar to a one meter depth fifty. Mr. Fox and his neighbors discover charcoal, quicklime, hair and, after expertise, of the human bones.

The “events of Hydesville” thus give rise to truly a social phenomenon. Less than six years after, in 1852, the passion for the Spiritisme reaches its roof in the United States: three million followers, innumerable médiums as well as many specialized magazines. Among the followers personalities such as Victor Hugo and Arthur Conan Doyle are, as well as many scientists and intellectuals. The movement gains Europe: Helena Blavatsky, Leonora Piper, Allan Kardec, Raspoutine, Houdini and Arthur Ford.

Thanks to the paying meetings and the subsidies of impassioned spiritism, the Fox sisters can devote themselves entirely to the mediumnity. In 1849, they make a public demonstration their talents with Rochester, then with the Barnum hotel, New York. Kate is committed with the exclusive service of a New Yorkean banking rich person for whom it materializes the “phantom” of his wife at the sides of the spectrum of Benjamin Franklin. Kate goes then in England where, between 1871 and 1874, its case is studied by William Crookes, president of a prestigious research center on the demonstrations paranormales, Society for Psychical Research.

Consents

The Fox sisters acknowledge to have manufactured the first contact, retract, then declare themselves that all this history was only one trickery. The followers of modern spiritism having found other médiums, these declarations are heard little. Kate dies in July 1892, at the 56 years age. Margaret dies in March 1893, at 59 years, completely ruined.

It is only into 1904 that one discovered other human bones under the wall of the cellar, with in the vicinity a box of tin hawker. Although no Charles B. Rosma was declared disappeared, this discovery was regarded by the followers as the proof of a true communication beyond death.

Related articles

External bonds and documents

  • the sisters Fox
  • Fox Sisters on spiritistic Alliance

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