Chambers of the Occult - EP #44 Knocks, Lies, and the Birth of Modern Spiritualism: The Fox Sisters

Episode Date: June 29, 2026

Send us Fan MailJ and Ysa explore the strange and complicated story of the Fox Sisters, whose mysterious farmhouse knocks helped launch Modern Spiritualism in 1848.What began as a frightening nighttime disturbance soon grew into an alleged murder mystery, crowded séances, public investigations, accusations of fraud, and a movement that offered comfort to grieving families across the country. But behind the fame were invasive examinations, childhood exploitation, addiction, fractured relationships, and a confession that threatened everything the sisters had helped create.Were Maggie, Kate, and Leah Fox frauds, victims, believers, or somehow all three?

Chambers of the Occult may contain content that might not be suitable for all listeners. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome back to Chambers of the Occult. I'm Jay and I'm here with my friend Issa. Hi, hello. Thank you for having me. I'm really happy to be here. Yes.

Now, Issa is a longtime friend from Hans, actually. that's how we met Would you care to tell the listeners a little bit about yourself? Yeah, so yeah, I met Jay at Winchester Mystery House working together back in 2023 where I was lucky enough to be cast as one of the main characters that year and it was super fun. And I love anything that has to do with spooky things, the occult, you know,

true crime, like all of that is super interesting to me. I've always been into it. I love horror movies too. If you ever want to talk horror movies, I'm your girl. And I'm just really excited to be here. I'm glad you could make it. Now, I kind of like gave you a little preview. I wouldn't even say preview. Like I told you the case we were covering, which is for the listeners. I mean, you already you know, because like you saw the title when you clicked on the episode, but it's the Fox Sisters. So did you do any research on the Fox Sisters? Do you know anything about them? I, so I've heard of them before you mentioned it, but just like in passing, I think it was in a show or a movie, they mentioned the Fox Sisters and how they're kind of the founders of spiritualism and how we approach it today, which is super interesting, yeah.

And what's crazy, it's that, you know, even for like the name of the Fox Sisters, you would think, you know, like young women, but like this were children that started the movement. And we'll get into it. So let's set the scene for it. On October 21st, 1888, a woman dressed in black,

walked onto the stage of the Academy of Music in New York City. The audience waiting for her was divided. Some had come to cheer, some had come to boo. Some believed this woman had spent 40 years communicating with the dead. Others believed she had spent 40 years deceiving the living. Her name was Margaret Foxcane. most people knew her as Maggie. And when Maggie was 14 years old, a few mysterious knocks inside her family's farmhouse

helped launch one of the largest religious movements in the 19th century. Now at 55, she had come to destroy it. There we go. That was the intro we were waiting for. That was good. So Maggie is one of the sisters. And at this age of 55, we'll go back in time, but this was an important, we'll start here, because this is when Maggie told the audience that spiritualism was absolutely bonkers, that it was all false.

She spent her whole life. basically being like, no, this is legit. Look at all this. To 54. And at 55, she's like, I lied. Oh, my goodness. Yep.

So she sat down. She removed her right shoe. And then she placed her bare foot on a small wooden stool. And in the theater filled with people who had like, come to hear the truth, Maggie Fox made the dead knock again. She was like showing people how she did it. Oh my God, she was using her toes. That's crazy. Now, 40 years earlier, almost the exact same sound had begun inside a dark bedroom in

Heightsville, New York. Two young girls said something in the room was answering them. Their mother called their neighbors. Their neighbors. asked questions. The questions created a murder. The murder created a mystery. The mystery created a movement. And the movement consumed the family at its center. Goodness. There's a murder involved in this. Like, like, there, it's crazy. Who was murdered? What the heck? I didn't read that. That's crazy. Oh. Okay. So the two girls pretended a ghost was knocking, and because of that that became famous,

one of them confessed the end. Like, that could be the short story, basically. But that basically, like, leaves out almost everything that makes the story matter, like, the murder. It also leaves out the third sister. Because I mentioned earlier, there's three sisters involved. Okay. It also leaves out the living man who was accused of murder. And it would leave out how this story was created through leading questions, out of the grief that made people want to believe. Out of the abolitionist and the women right organizers who helped spread the movement. but this is a story of what happens

when noise becomes evidence when evidence becomes belief and when belief becomes an industry. That was good. Now, there's usually like a warning at the start of the episode, but I'll give another warning here because this story does contain

discussions of death, alleged murder, grief, addiction, possible childhood exploitation, accusations of fraud and invasive physical examinations as well. Okay. Now we are discussing spirit communication as a historical claim. We're not attempting to tell anyone that they shouldn't believe in the afterlife. That is for them to decide. Okay.

So let's start with the Fox family. The first thing that we need to correct is the phrase the Fox sisters. Because people usually mean Maggie and Kate, the two young girls that were present when the knocking became famous. But the third sister was the oldest Anne Leah Fox, who was usually just called Leah. Then there was Margarita called Maggie and the youngest

called Catherine or called Kate or Katie Leah was roughly 20 years older than Maggie Oh my goodness Yeah we'll get into that It's a little important

later in the story So she was not simply a sister close to them in age she was a completely different generation just by the age. She probably acted as a caretaker to the girls as well. Kind of, yeah. And by the time the strange events started, Leah had already been married. Okay.

So Leah had a daughter of her own. She was supporting herself as a piano teacher in Rochester. Maggie was about 14 and Kate was roughly 11. So at that point, Leah was in like her 30s. Now, their parents were John and Margaret Fox, and neighbors later would describe the family as respected Methodist. Although later histories also describe them a more difficult. with a more difficult family past.

John reportedly struggled with alcohol, and the parents experienced periods of separation when their older children were young. Okay. Now, by 1847, John and Margaret were together, and they were preparing to build a new home near their son, David and Wayne County, New York. They had a son, but he's not involved in the movement whatsoever.

Is he closer to the older sister's age? Is he the oldest or just closer to her age? I'm not sure. Okay, okay. Yeah, but there's a son involved. Okay, yeah, that's fine. Well, you don't care about him. Okay.

They just, the parents wanted to move closer to their son, and that's when like the family was being prepared. The family rented a small cottage in the community of Heightsville. Okay. And this is the supposedly haunted cottage. Yes. Okay, I see. Got it.

That's the reason that they moved there because they were trying to be closer to their son. Okay. So they moved into it on December 11, 1847. and this cottage was not a grand haunted mansion. It was just a farmhouse. And we already know that farmhouses tend to have things in them. Now, this is the kind of place where ordinary noises would have just been normal. Wood settling, animals wandering underneath the floor.

or like, went against the walls. Now, the Fox family didn't, like, immediately move into the house and announced that they were living with ghosts. According to, like, some of the early published accounts, they lived there for months before the noises became, like, a serious problem. Oh. I feel like I've heard of hauntings that are pretty much like that, where things start off very, very slow and then gradually builds up as the family is, is like living there for a while.

Because then it's like more, it's more disturbance. Like the family's been living there, they're living their daily lives, moving around, making noise, putting all their stuff out. So I guess that makes sense. Or because of like renovations or something like that. Right. Right. Disturbing the house, yeah. Later accounts also say that former occupants had heard strange sounds too, and that the earliest investigation included statements from people who claim

that unexpected noises had happened before the Fox family arrived. Okay. So some people that previously stayed there also said, no, the noises were here before the family moved in. Okay. Interesting. Now, some of those statements were collected after the Fox family's story had already spread. So that's when people were looking backwards and, like, reinterpreting, like, earlier noises through the new legend.

So that also happens often in, like, haunted stories. Someone says, the house is haunted, and then everyone who lived there remembers hearing, like, a strange noise. And then they're like, okay, like, that was a ghost back in the back. Yeah. But we can say confidently that in the middle of March 1848, the Fox household was repeatedly hearing something that disturbed them in their sleep. And in that house, sleep was already a very communal thing. The earliest testimony says that the entire family slept together in the

east bedroom, which I just find weird that that's how you would describe it. I was like, I don't describe any of my bedrooms by like northeast, west, or south. But I'm like, okay, yeah, they slept together in the east bedroom. Well, how, how big was the, it's a farmhouse? It's a farmhouse. Because it wasn't that big, was it? How many? No. Yeah, so that's interesting, instead of just being like, yeah, okay. Because I can imagine. Imagine it if it's like the girl's bedroom. Spread out. Right.

Yeah. Okay. So the detail that makes the scene very different from like the popular image of two girls alone in their private bedroom. It's that this was like a family room. And when something moved, knocked or vibrated, all of them could experience it. It wasn't just the girls that heard it. Okay. Now, one of the best things we have...

So the parents then would have... Sorry. Go ahead. So, yeah, so then the parents would have experienced these things, too, and been able to confirm or deny any of this. The three sisters, well, the two sisters, and then, like, the parents. And then eventually a lawyer named E. Lewis traveled to Hidesville to interview the family and the neighbors, and he wrote down their statements. He read the statements back to them, and he had them sign their names.

Kind of like, hey, this is what you said. and then his pamphlet was called a report of the mysterious noises heard in the house of Mr. John D. Fox and it was published in 1848. Once again, like, it doesn't mean that everything in that report is true. It's just like a sign statement that can document what someone claimed to have experience.

But the pamphlet does let us see a story before decades of like mythology hardened around the family and the sisters. Now, this pamphlet does not name Maggie or Kate. It just refers to them as the younger and older girls. Okay. And it does not contain the famous line. There's a famous line that Kate supports. supposedly says, Mr. Splitfoot, do as I do. Who is Mr. Splitfoot?

I don't like that name. I don't like that name. That is terrifying. Mr. Splitfoot was a nickname for the devil. Oh, oh, of hooves, of course. That makes sense. Uh-huh. And it's just like a dramatic phrase that appears in later versions, but in that pamphlet, like, that's not mentioned at all.

Yeah. So when that interview happened, it's not mentioned in that original pamphlet. So before we tell the famous version, let's tell the version with the version that their mother signed. So Margaret Fox said that the family first heard the sound roughly two weeks before March 31st. It sounded like knocking in the East bedroom. Sometimes it sounded like a chair moving. The family couldn't tell exactly where it came from. And that's when they started to search the house.

Now, you would expect that the noise would stop when people would be like, searching for the noise, but it continued. And Margaret described more than sound. She said that the beds and the chairs appear to jar or tremble. And family members placed their hands on a chair and felt the movement. And we don't have like any confirmation that there was like an earthquake. like, I'm assuming whoever was taking this

this statement kind of would debunk as much as he could before putting it in this report. So that's super interesting. Well, the thing is like this was like in the 1880s, like this was before like the Richter scale.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, I don't know if they would have like cross-examined an earthquake and their story back in the time. I can imagine him going to the neighbor's house and being like, did you feel this as well?

Maybe. I don't know. I'm just looking it up real quick. When was the Richter's scale? Yeah, the Richter's scale was developed in 1935. After the 1906 quick? Yeah. Oh my God, not until then.

Oh, geez. I didn't realize it was so late. 1935. So if it was an earthquake like we wouldn't have known but by March 31st

no no that's actually a really great theory I didn't even think of that by March 31st Margaret said that she was like nearly sick from exhaustion because this just kept happening like it wasn't a one-time incident like they

would keep hearing the noise and like they would just knock get enough sleep. So, like, that's when the family, like, made a decision. Like, they would go to bed early as if that would solve the problem. They would try to ignore the noise, and then they would, like, try to finally get some rest. And, of course, it didn't work. And then the sound began again.

Gosh, I can't even imagine. Oh, my goodness. Of course it did. That sounds so stressful. And you would think So since they're all sleeping in the same bedroom One of the girls couldn't be doing that That had to have been like a

Phenomena, you know? Yeah, and once again, like they sign like this interview That they had with this reporter And then, I mean, it doesn't make it true But their parents are like, know like this is what happened Like we'll sign it But they were convinced And as the sound began

Kate, the youngest sister, tried to imitate it by snapping her fingers. So as fast as she made a sound with her fingers, the noise reportedly followed her. It was mimicking or echoing, okay. Yeah. And then when she stopped, It stopped.

And that is exactly how people still conduct paranormal investigations is repetition. Oh, that's crazy. Yeah. And then Maggie joined in. So Kate, you know, tried it first and then Maggie joined in. And according to her mother's statement, Maggie spoke playful. and said, Now do as I do,

count one, two, three, four. And the sound copied her. Like the rapping? Yeah. I'd move out. No. When it copied her,

Maggie became frightened. She did freak out. Oh my gosh. That is the sign of intelligence. Like, I, oh, that's, that is. that's spooky. No, thank you. Yeah. Now, the mother's report that she signed do say that the girls were frightened. Later retelling say that the girls sounded like confident little mediums who immediately knew how to communicate with ghosts.

But the mother's original statement that she signed was like, no, the girls were frightened when it responded. Oh, my goodness. I mean, she, I guess, because she could have been, thinking about not the first time and recounting a different time, because I'm assuming these girls did this a lot after that, after they knew they could communicate with it. Yes. Yeah. In an early account, they began playing with the noise. The noise begins to answer, and then one of them becomes startle by what they begin.

And then that's when the mother takes over. Margaret tells the noise to count to 10, and it responds. Oh. Mm-hmm. Oh. So at this point, it's the two sisters, and then the mother gets involved. And then she begins naming the ages of her children. Oh, my gosh.

So then the noise gives a number of wraps corresponding to the age of each child. Mm-hmm. No. now get me out of here nothing I'm also thinking you don't need to know

how old my children are yes I'm like what makes you think as like okay this thing is freaking us out now it's responding to us

now I'm going to tell you how old my child is that's that's peak mothering right there oh yeah so then

Margaret asked the question that changes this entire interaction. She asked, Is a human being making the noise? Silence. Is it a spirit? Two sounds. Is it an injured spirit?

No noises. Was it injured in this house? Oh my God. No noise. Oh. Was the person who Was the person who injured it still alive? No noise.

And then from that point forward, the family is no longer investigating an unexplained sound. They're interviewing a murder victim. Oh, my God. What the heck? Mm-hmm. Because one of the questions was, like, Is it an injured spirit?

And there's, like, one noise. But then everything else is, like, quiet. So they're like, wait. So, like, this was an injured spirit. Like, you were killed. So, like, let's... They became investigators. And that's why it's still sticking around

because the killer probably was never caught necessarily. Yeah. They basically went from, like, what is that noise to a dead person was murder in this house? let's find out how or who killed them. Oh my gosh. That's crazy. And it's literally this whole, the whole interview with the ghost process, this, this, it's a seance pretty much.

This is like the first account of a seance. And we literally still do this exact thing, except now we have like crazy. have like crazy technology, like spirit boxes and EMF record. Like that's crazy. That's so, that's so funny how we're doing pretty much the same exact thing. Yeah. We just changed from like knocking two other things. Right.

Right. And still knocking even too happens. Sometimes. Some ghosts are all-fashioned. Oh. Now, the supposed spirit did not, like, begin by independently telling the room that my name is this and, like, I was murdered by, like, this person. Right. So the people in the room had to, like, start asking not open-ended questions, but, like, yes and no questions.

Yes or no. Like, were you struck in the head? Like, were you stabbed on the side? when they asked, were you not stabbed in the side, they heard one knock. Oh my goodness. Because they first asked, were you stabbed in the side? No noise. Were you not stabbed in the side?

They heard one noise. Oh, my goodness. So it was kind of like process of elimination. They were like, were you struck on the head? No noise. Were you not struck on the head? One knock. Which is actually like a really smart way to go about it when you think about it.

Yes. Yes, because that confirms your findings. Yeah, because like you're confirming that like you're talking to someone. It's like, were you struck in the head? No noise. It's like, were you not struck in the head? And then like they respond. It's like, if they don't respond. I was like, okay, maybe you left.

Right. Or like I'm just talking to myself. Right. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. That's so interesting. Now, they did ask a question that might answer how the person was killed. Yeah.

They asked, was your throat cut a rap? Oh, no. Was it done with a butcher knife? A rap. Was it Monday? Nothing. Was it Tuesday? A knock.

9 o'clock. Nothing. 10 o'clock? Nothing. 11. Nothing. Midnight. A wrap.

And then they asked, $100. Nothing. $200, $300, $400, $400. You know, when I read that I was like, it sounds like a bid. Yeah, it's an auction. Yeah, $500. And then they heard like a rap.

So that's how they got their story together. Oh, wow. That the witness eventually said that the spirit had been a 31-year-old. old man who had a wife who had died two years earlier who had so this this is all from like their questions of like yes no yes no yes no so their full story of the person that was haunting the house that they were having their unofficial seance well official seance before they knew it was a seance or called it a saunce was that um the witness okay that uh the spirit had been a 30 one-year-old man, who had a wife who had died two years earlier, who had five children,

two sons and three daughters, he had been a traveling peddler, he carried goods in a trunk and a pack, he had been murdered while asleep, his throat had been cut with a butcher's knife, The crime took place at midnight on a Tuesday And the killer stole $500 The body was carried through the house And buried roughly 10 feet beneath the cellar Oh my God Ew

That's so scary Well that's why he hasn't moved on His body's there Oh his poor wife died He can't even be with his wife in the afterlife. He's stuck there talking to these children. But when you think about it, the people asking the questions were not necessarily like receiving a narrative. Like they were building one with all this questions.

They took them forever, I'm sure. Oh, my gosh. It was basically like a guessing game. But like every successful knock became like a. quote, in quote, fact. If they had a Ouija board, that would have taken so much less time. Honestly. Oh, the old-fashioned way with knocking.

Yeah. I'm so curious of, like, how long it took them. Me too. I feel like to get that specific. Did they get his name or anything like that? Like, they could have, they could have spelled it out, like ABC, gone through it all that time and probably got a name. Gosh. But that, yeah, see, that would have taken, like, hours, depending on how long his name was.

Fair, yeah. Oh, man. So probably took, like, weeks? Maybe. I don't know. I guess it depends on how long they were up there. Or maybe, like, they just took turns between the sisters and the mom. Yeah.

Oh, my goodness. But this creates a problem. The witness repeatedly asked the same questions as, new neighbors entered the house. So they interpret it receiving the same answers as proof of consistency. But everyone in the room had now heard the previous answers. So the questionnaire knew what the response was and anyone secretly making new sounds, knew what the response expected was. Yeah, yeah, they should have had a control in there to make sure that it was, you know, yeah, I guess they, but we know that now, but back then this is all, this is all new, you know?

Well, it then became, like, dangerous because the neighbors began, the neighbors began naming people who previously lived in the cottage. Oh, like who murders this guy. Oh, my gosh. Yes. Was this person responsible? No knock. Was this other person responsible? No knock.

Then they named another like former occupant and the room heard three unusual loud knocks. Oh my gosh. A living man had just been accused of murder by a sound. Oh, that's insane. That's insane. Well, you can, you can, how are you supposed to prove that in court? How are you supposed to be like, you know what? It's like death note how, how Elle had to prove that God existed.

Like, that's crazy. That's crazy. Your honor. The wall told me so. But, but like you could, you could really substantiate those claims if you go in the cellar and dig it up and see if you can find a body. Like, and the thing is that if I were a judge,

I might be convinced, maybe. They were like, bring me a body. Yeah. But at that point, like, do you want to dig up a body? I'd want to know. I'd want to know. Fair. Like, you're at that point, like, you're too deep in.

Yeah. You can't, you can't just go back after that. You're just going to live with this guy and not give him justice. Like, I have to do something. I'm sure he would probably get more upset that if you just like stop talking to him entirely. Yeah, exactly. It's like, I literally just gave you like a smoking gun and like you're not doing anything about it. That's so rude.

Yeah, honestly. Now, the early pamphlet that the family sign doesn't name the person that they said. They just leave that blank. Ooh. But the newspaper and local discussion made the accusation public enough that the man reportedly sought statements from former neighbors defending his character. Fair enough. I mean, yeah, it's not like you're going to have an alibi. We're not going to remember it from that long ago unless it was a significant date.

So when he heard us like, hey, like this family and apparently like a dead man in that house. house is claiming that you killed him. He had to go around and be like, hey, like, you've known me. Like, you know, I would never do that. Like, you got to, like, make a statement on, you know. That's so interesting that he even did that because it's like, prove it. Like, what do you? You know what I mean?

How are they supposed to convict him at all? Yeah. That's right. Because there's no physical evidence, like, connecting this former occupant to, like, a murder. But the community had created, like, an invisible witness that appeared to accuse him. Mm-hmm. I feel so bad for that guy. You know, if he's innocent, assuming he's innocent.

Because who knows? Like, I feel so bad for him. A ghost said I murdered them. Like, okay. Yeah. Unless there's a body, then it's, come on. Like, come on. Yeah.

Well, he was never charged with murder to the supposed peddler. I assumed not, because that would be insane. That'd be a crazy, like a crazy court. What's the word where they use it for other cases? Oh, oh. precedent. precedent. That would be a crazy precedent to set where Ghost said that he murdered him.

Like that that would be crazy. Oh gosh. It really would be. Imagine where our court system would be like now. There is another story where like someone murdered their like someone solved their own murder. But we'll have to talk about that later. Let's save that for a later day because I want to hear more about that. That's so interesting. Oh my gosh. Yes.

Okay. So once again, he was never charged with murdering the supposed peddler. And like that's one part of the story that people skip because it complicates the fun haunted house version. But it's part of the whole picture, you know? It's less entertaining to know that a live in person. was accused through a method with like no reliable safeguards. Right. Oh my goodness.

What? Sorry, remind me what year this, this was. This was like in the 1830s. Okay, okay. Got it. Mm-hmm. The spirit was also asked whether the murderer could be brought to justice. And like there was no noise.

At least he's self-aware. Could the murderer be punished by law? No noise whatsoever. And then someone revised the story and it's like, if the murderer cannot be punished by law, make the noise. And then the noise returned. Okay. So the system had now protected itself from the absence of like prosecution.

So yeah, the ghost also was like, No, I'm not going to press charges. What happens? Yeah, because, you know, if the spirit already warned them that, you know, like earthly justice would fail, like, why do it anyway? Yeah. I feel bad for him. Now, after Margaret, the mother asked whether the noise would continue if she called a neighbor,

she called a neighbor, the sound reportedly indicated yes. John Fox went next door and brought in Mrs. Redfield. She arrived expecting to joke about the children, and then she heard the sound. And then she called her husband over. And then his husband called other people over. So people who had been fishing nearby also came inside. Just like they just getting everyone up in here. It's a community gathering.

Yeah. So some people ended up spending the night. Oh, that's so interesting. And people started asking questions like repeatedly. Like the family became overwhelmed. Oh, yeah. Well, I can imagine the ghost being overwhelmed by that too, answering so many random questions. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. And then Margaret and the girls left to sleep with the neighbors. So they didn't even sleep in their own house that night. They're like, there's too many people at home.

So while John remained in the cottage with another man, and they just, like, kept going at it, like, asking questions. Then the following day, the house filled up again because... They're gaining popularity now. See, this is where it starts to get into the main vein of society. Okay. Yeah. Hey, we're talking to a dead man.

Come over. Let's all talk to them together, guys. Honestly, because, like, I don't think, like, the word seance was a thing then, but that's probably the invite. Like, hey, we're talking to a dead man. Come over. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's so great.

Which is so weird to say. Yeah. Yeah. Because when you think about, like, the word seons, that's basically what we're saying. We're talking to a dead person. Come over. Huh. Okay.

So Margaret's statement says that some people estimated as many as 300 visitors were present by Saturday evening. So this is still the same small. farmhouse. And they heard that a man was murdered and he was knocking beneath the floor and close to 300 people showed up. Some came because they believed. Some came to expose the fraud. Some came because nothing this exciting had ever happened near them.

It's basically a carnival. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. And that's, oh, wait. You know what? That's interesting that you said. they slept at the neighbor's house, but the husband and another man was still there. The girls weren't there to, if it supposedly was all a hoax.

So, like, how were the girls making the noises if they were sleeping at the house next door? Which is why, like, this case is, like, so fascinating and so controversial because there's instances like this. Like, the girls are not even, like, in the vicinity. like they're sleeping next door. Yeah. How could anyone have done that? Unless it was the dad doing it, but like, why would you want that kind of attention?

Right. Right. That's so interesting. Yeah. And then committees were appointed. You know, there was like 300 people there. Questions are shouted. people were crawling through the house

searching for hidden mechanisms. Yep, yep. Now, this was the part that you were talking about earlier, and the family didn't do it. But other people, strangers, went into the cellar, and they began digging. Ah, that's so best up. You need this.

You can't just do that in someone's house. jeez ask permission oh my god what's wrong with you people well at least they're trying to get to the bottom of it

I guess goodness also like I imagine that if you're the dad or like the mom and there's like 300 people you're not going to notice when like a handful of them going to the cellar and start digging.

Right. Like there's 300 people in your farmhouse. So they start digging. Okay. So what did they find? Well, they had to stop because they hit water. So there was no. Oh my God.

And then they flooded these poor people's house. They're already haunted and now they're flooded. Oh, goodness. I feel so bad for them. Oh my goodness You know At that point You're like

Okay guys It's over Like this was a hoax Like please leave Like we're gonna fix this now Literally just so they'd get out of my house But they didn't Like that's the thing

Because like nobody was confirmed Like nobody was recovered And like the absence of the body Like does not end the excitement Like the digging itself becomes part of the story Yeah Yep

Oh my gosh They should have asked the ghost Like Like I'm going to go downstairs Tell me when I get clothes or something Like you know what I mean Dig here At least got more specific

Dig here Yeah It got to the point Where attention Gradually began focusing On the sisters because the sounds appeared especially connected to the girl's presence, but the earlier statements are not as neat as the later versions.

So some of the witnesses claim to hear noises in different locations, including bedrooms, the cellar, and then people also disagree about where the sounds came from, some felt vibrations, some said that it came from, floor, and then others couldn't, like, determine the location. And I think part of the ambiguity, it's what keeps, like, that mystery because they're like, we don't know where the sound is coming from. Now, a noise produced near one person can seem as though it comes from the wall, floor, or far

side of the room. and once someone points and says it came from over there, the rest of the room may begin listening in that direction. But at this point, like, nobody had, like, demonstrated exactly how the sounds were being produced. Because they didn't find any hidden mechanisms. And the Fox family did what frightened and overwhelmed families often do. They separated the girls from the house. Kate went to Rochester to stay with Leah,

and then their older sister, and then Maggie appeared to have spent time with their older brother, David, before also moving into Rochester. Now, if the cottage itself was haunted, like you mentioned earlier, like that should have solved the problem because the girls were not in the house. But according to the family and later witnesses, the Knox followed them. Followed the girls or followed?

Oh, okay. Followed the girls. Okay. Because the mystery was no longer attached to a building. It was attached to the girls. And they think it was the same entity, the same guy. Well, we'll get into it because this was the start of Maggie and Katie becoming mediums. Oh, okay.

Now, let's talk a little bit about Leah because we mentioned that one of the sisters moved in to live with Leah. Leah is often cast in one of two roles in most stories. She is either the skeptical version. So in the skeptical version, she's the mastermind. Which, how is she the mastermind if she wasn't there when it all started? Or, but anyway, she's recognized, she recognizes that the young, that her younger sisters can make mysterious sounds and turn their tricks into like a profitable career. Oh, okay. Like she suggested they do that.

Mm-hmm. And then in the second version, in the spiritualist version, she is the responsible older sister. So she's either the mastermind or she's a responsible older sister. There's no in between. You can't be both. And if she's the responsible older sister, like she rescues two sensitive children from a chaotic farmhouse

to protect them from the hostile crime. to help them understand a genuine spiritual gift that they possess. And the truth is that she doesn't really fit into either version. Leah was already an adult with a daughter of her own, like we said earlier. She had been married young, and after that relationship ended, she supported herself by teaching music in Rochester. She did not enter the picture as a child. She had adult responsibilities. She also had far more authority than Maggie and Kate.

And when she arrived, she could see that the situation in Heightsville was not sustainable. Because hundreds of strangers were entering the house. Yeah, that's definitely not safe. No. And the family was being a key. accused of fraud and blasphemy. The girls were becoming the center of like uncontrollable public spectacle and removing them generally could have been a protective move on her side.

I assume also the parents probably pushed them to exit the house as well. Yeah. I mean, there was the night that they sent them away from the farmhouse to the neighbor's house. The parents also acknowledge that. But once the not, reportedly appeared in Rochester, Leah also recognized that the events could be organized. Visitors could be scheduled, rooms could be controlled, demonstrations could be repeated,

money could be charged, the chaos could become a profession. and Leah eventually claim medium medium mediumistic abilities is that how you would say it I think so okay

maybe psychic yeah psychic abilities yeah she ended up she participated in seances and she later wrote a family history defending the movement

oh so she may have believed completely, or she may have suspected that some effects were being created, but believed other effects were genuine. Okay. Yeah. Or maybe she understood that it was a performance from the beginning. Now, Maggie's memories of Leah changed throughout her life.

At times, Maggie's one of the sisters at times. She described that Leah was a Karen and protective sister. other times she described her as turning children into tools. Yeah. Oh, Maggie's the one that said on stage that it was a hoax, right? Okay. Well, then that makes sense why her story would change. Yeah.

But that may also reflect like a relationship that was like generally both like loving and expletive. Yeah. Explo- Exploitative, yeah. Exploitative, thank you. Which could be both, to be honest. Yeah. Leah could have, like, protected her sisters from one kind of danger while, like, unfortunately, introducing them to another.

I mean, honestly, like, if it was all a hoax, I can absolutely understand why they leaned into it. as a woman in that time period and you have a way to make your own money, I get it. I get it. Like, you do you sisters. Also, let's keep in mind that, like, at that point, Leah was a single woman with a daughter of her own. Yes. And I'm sure music, that's not going to pay you a whole lot.

You only have so many students as well doing that. that's not necessarily a set income. If you teach the kid all they need to know about music, they're gone, you know? If you're a good teacher. This reminds me so much of that the little girls that did those pictures with fairies. Do you remember that one?

That hoax? No. Yeah, there are these two little girls. I don't remember the specifics, but they basically took photos and overlaid pictures of little women with wings on them. Wait, yes. Yeah, and it's like kind of the first Photoshop, you know, where they were able to do that. And people believed that they were real fairies. And they got super famous.

It sounds so similar. But then, of course, it came out as a hoax later on, and they, like, showed everyone how they did it. But that one was, that sounds like tit for tat. Because I think they were sisters as well. It's so funny. Wow. Okay. It's just girlhood.

It's like one of the situation. Sisterhood. If you're not starting a hoax with your sister, like, what are you doing? Right. So the story might have disappeared if Maggie and Kate have moved summer quieter when they left the farmhouse, but instead they ended up moving to Rochester. And Rochester was an Erie Canal boomtown at the time. People, products, newspapers, lectures, and new ideas moved through the city.

Like, Western New York had become, like, famous for, like, religious revivals, for like reform movements. The region was called to burn over district because it had been been swept so often by intense religious enthusiasm that people joke that there was no spiritual fuel left to burn. Oh. So they were like a welcome spiritual revival

other than like theology. That's very interesting. The same broad region had seen the same rise in Mormonism. Abolitionists were challenging slavery. Women were demanding political and legal rights. Temperist activists were fighting alcohol. Boo. People were questioning old churches.

Old hierarchies. and old explanations. And then the Fox sisters arrive with something perfectly suited for that sort of environment. Absolutely. Not a minister saying that heaven existed, not a scripture written centuries earlier,

but a knock in your own room. A message from someone you missed. And spiritualism didn't intentionally intentionally present itself as the opposite of science. That's the thing. Many believers saw it as the next scientific discovery at the time. The telegraph had recently transformed communication, which was an invisible electrical signal that could move through wire and become language miles away.

So to people living through technological change, spirit communication, didn't necessarily sound like impossible. Right. Right. Because if... Go ahead. I just, I love that quote. Magic is science we don't understand yet.

Yeah. Because at the time, if a telegraph could connect Rochester to another city, perhaps like spiritual telegraph could connect the living to the dead. And if... was all just knocking. Now, there were other ideas preparing people for the movement. The Swedish mystic, Emmanuel, and I'm going to butcher his last name, Swedenborg, maybe I didn't, had claimed to visit and communicate with spiritual worlds.

Andrew Jackson Davis, sometimes called John the Baptist of Spiritualism, claimed that spirits communicated through altered states of consciousness, and he had also published work describing spiritual realities just before the events in Heidsville. So the Fox Sisters appeared with something simpler. Like, there was already talk about spiritualism, but they kind of just simplified it for everyone. You didn't need a deep trans, you didn't need a vision.

Or drugs. You just, no. You just needed to listen. And everyone could understand a knock. I'm just, I think I'm really surprised that, I guess it makes sense in this context because there's multiple witnesses, but they didn't just chalk it up to. oh, you're crazy. Let's put you in the mental asylum. Because that's what they

usually would do, you know? Because it started with like the family, like the two sisters, the mom and the dad. And then like the mom is like, I'm going to bring the neighbor over. And she's like, I'm going to bring my husband over. And he's like, I'm going to bring this two friends that are fishing

over. And like they just kept bringing people over. I wonder if it was, if this had happened, but it was all women. And then as soon as man got there, for some reason it didn't happen, what they would have done with them. Just, just curious. Uh-huh. I also think it's because it wasn't just like word of mouth. It wasn't like, oh my God, like, Mary, you'd never believe what happened next, like in my bedroom last night. It's like,

oh my God, Mary, you got to come over. Like, please come experience this. Like, it's not just me. And then Mary would go over and she's like, oh, my God, Jonathan, you got to come over, you know. And And it's like people are coming over rather than just like hearing by word of mouth. I feel like that might be part of the reason that they didn't say like you're crazy. I mean, eventually when there was like 300 people, at that point it was word of mouth. Of course. Yeah. That's confirmation right there.

It's like, okay, this is enough people. It's not mass hysteria at this point. Like it should be. I could have, yeah, could have been. Now, among the people drawn into the story were, into the story were Amy and Isaac Post. They were not isolated people with unfamiliar. There were not isolated people unfamiliar with public life. There were radical Quaker reformers.

Their home in Rochester was connected to. the Underground Railroad. They supported Frederick Douglass and helped finance the newspaper The North Star. Their home welcomed abolitionists and reformers, including Douglas William Lloyd Garrison

and Lucretia Mott. And then Harriet Jacobs who had escaped slavery had later wrote incidents in the life of a slave girl. Lot lived with the post for, she lived with the post for a period. Okay, so Amy participated in Women Rights Convention and later helped connect Susan B. Anthony with the movement.

There's a lot of names. There's a lot of names. But a lot of those names are big names at the time. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Now, this people were people that were already willing to challenge and to challenge accepted authority. Right. So that's why like this time period is so, I think, important for like the Fox Sisters and the spiritualism movement because people were already challenging like established authority.

Yeah, exactly. if this had happened at a different time, it might not have been accepted in a way that it has been. That's really cool. Yeah. Now, the post were also grieving parents because they had unfortunately lost multiple children. Their son Edmund died in a threshing accident. And then their young daughter, daughter, Matilda, died in 1845. and their son Henry died in 1847.

So they lost three children. And when the Fox sister seances appeared to produce information about Matilda and the other deceased relatives, spiritualism became more than just an intellectual experiment. Because for people like the Post, it offered them personal consolation. Excuse me

Now, ISEC initially approached the phenomena with skepticism but he became convinced that the raps represented like communication and then soon the post home became a gathering place

for seances this is where Leah also enters at trance state seon also she Leah also entered trans states there.

So Leah started not, well, being part of the seances, but she would have those like trans states that some people would go into. Oh, oh, okay. So she was in, she like used herself to communicate. Like, is that what you mean? Yes. Like she was in a trans. Oh, oh, that's interesting. Mm-hmm. What's interesting is that, like, dead historical figures suddenly, like, return with opinions about slavery, equality, and, like, human progress.

Okay. We're using ghosts for feminism. I like that. That's what I was going to mention. Those are some of the theories that it became very popular because, you know, women couldn't really express themselves. but through the spiritualism movement, they could kind of make their points of views known because like, oh, it's not me. It's my dead husband. Exactly, exactly. Exactly.

It kind of like demonstrates how, like, spiritualism could become like a voice for the living. A medium could like say something that's politically dangerous. Well, it's not necessarily them, saying it. It's a spirit saying it. That's so funny. I love that. So women who might not be welcome into like a certain circle all of a sudden would be welcomed because spiritualism was very inclusive at the time because everyone wanted to be part of it.

Reformers could claim that equality was not merely their opinion, it was wisdom from the spirit world. And then automatic writing and trans-speaking can involve complicated states of attention, expectation, and belief. And then a person might experience the words as coming from somewhere outside themselves. But whether it was consciously or unconsciously, the spirits often spoke the language of the room. For example, the post-reformed circle also shows that intelligence and courageous people can disagree sharply about extraordinary claims. Frederick Douglass remained close to Amy and Isaac, but he privately disagreed with their spiritualism. Oh. So the fact that someone supports abolition or women's rights doesn't automatically make every other belief they hold correct.

I can imagine him being like, let's not deal with dead people. Let's deal with living people. Let's maybe focus on that. Let's focus on the issues that real people have. Yeah. The living people have. But I can also, I can imagine the posts in that sense. Even though they were, like you said, they were already kind of outright with their beliefs.

I can imagine them wanting to protect their whiteness in that time. And to be like, oh, well, it's, you know, it's the spirits and stuff, like you said, to try and keep something of that privilege. Mm-hmm. And by the late 1849, private seances were no longer enough because the spirits, according to Leah, wanted to go public. Okay. In November, Leah and Maggie rented Corinthian Hall. the largest auditorium in Rochester. And there is a detail that is often reported incorrectly because Kate was away visiting friends.

Okay. And the first major pain public demonstration centered primarily on Maggie and Leah. Maggie was still a teenager. And then admission at the time was 25 cents. That's kind of a lot, isn't it? I would think so, because this was like 1880. That, wow. 1849.

They probably made bank. Hundreds of people came. That's amazing. And then an early supporter name Eliap Capron lectured about the manifestations while rap sounded through the hall. But the audience didn't simply accept what they heard. committees were appointed to investigate and what happened next was not a polite scientific examination

investigators held the woman's feet keep in mind this are girls like that's a child yes that is a child they placed their and then like they place their bodies in like different positions

They made them stand on glass surfaces. They tied their skirts tightly around their ankles. They used a stethoscope to listen to their bodies. Wow. That's actually really smart. And then the committee of women took Maggie and Leah into a private room and they remove their clothing. Mm-hmm.

Come on. That's disgusting. Yeah. They searched their bodies and garments for, like, devices. And Maggie and Leah reportedly cried from humiliation. Because, once again, they are kids. This are children. That's disgusting.

And it's probably a gross old dude. Oh. I hate that. Oh my goodness. He's poor woman. Well, it was a committee of women that took them into a private room. Oh, that makes it a little, little, just a little bit better. Yeah, but nonetheless, it's still children. No, that's still humiliating. That's still so, oh, those poor girls. Mm-hmm.

But, of course, the committee didn't find any mechanism, but they still didn't consider it sufficient to explain the sounds. The wrappings continued, and according to the reports and investigators, they announced that they had not detected fraud. Okay. Now, on the final night, hostile skeptics crowded the hall. And that's when the atmosphere became dangerous. Maggie and Leah required police protection to leave.

My goodness. So, teenager girls were stripped, restrained, and then escort it through an angry crowd because people want it prove of a ghost. This is like a witch hunt. Yeah. And like, that's why the Fox Sister story can't just be reduced to, they became famous. Because fame didn't really give them, like, power. It gave them income. It allowed the young woman to, like, have.

a public attention, but their bodies became public evidence. They lost, yeah, they're losing their autonomy by doing that. In a society where your autonomy is already, like, so policed. Goodness, it's so sad how relevant this still is. Yeah. Because it, because you said it's unfortunate how relevant this is, because if they wanted to believe, if they wanted to be believed, strangers felt entitled to touch them, restrain them, and examine them, and search beneath their clothing.

Goodness. And every single test failed to expose them and just increase their fame, which just became a repeating cycle. Exactly. Exactly. It's a feedback loop. Oh, my goodness. Because that just meant that, like, humiliation also became.

became professionally valuable. Because if their suffering could be presented as proof that they had nothing to hide, the more invasive examination became the stronger the public triumph when no mechanism was found. And this is the contradiction at the center of their career. Spiritualism created unusually... spiritualism created unusual authority in women, but it also made the female medium's body into an object everybody believed that they had the right to investigate. Goodness.

That is very, very deep. Mm-hmm. So the Corinthian Hall events were a turning point. The Fox phenomenon had survived a pain audience. and it had survived committees, he had survived public hostility, it had generated publicity, the girls were no longer a strange local family,

they had become celebrities at this point. And when the Fox sisters entered New York, the Knox would move from crowded farmhouse and reformer parlors into rooms of writers, politicians, scientists and the wealthy. But this fame would also end up separating the sisters. One would try to leave the spirits for love, and one would carry the family name across the Atlantic.

And one of them would become wealthy enough to leave mediumship behind, then returned decades later as the enemy, her younger sister is blamed for everything. Oh. The Fox sisters traveled to New York and they began holding seances for influential visitors. This is part two. This is what I started with. Talking about how they operating rooms like Barnum's Hotel, not owned by PT Barnum.

Of course. Visitors paid to sit around tables and hear the wrappings. People wanted to learn about love, money, businesses. how it became popular because to talk to spirits you didn't need a priest, you didn't go to a church, you didn't need to wait for heaven, the dead could just enter the parlor, and anybody from any circle could join, anybody could experiment, and anybody could discover that they were a medium at the time as well. That also made fraud easy to introduce. Now, the emotional force behind spiritualism became even greater during and after the American Civil War.

Yeah, I can imagine. Especially widows and families wanting to speak to their passed away loved ones. Exactly. People lost their sons, brothers, husbands, fathers, bodies sometimes were never found or returned. And then photography could preserve an image, but it couldn't really answer the question. So traditional religion promised reunion after death, but spiritualism promised contact right now. And of course, grieving parents could sit in a dark room and hear a familiar name spelled out through Knox. A widow could receive a message telling her that her husband remained near.

But calling it, the promise created a market. And I can imagine that created more supply, more demands, yeah, more opportunities for hoaxes, like you said. Yeah. And a medium could exploit mourning. A medium could also believe she was providing genuine comfort. So unfortunately, there's both sides. A sister could be deceived about the source of a sound while still experiencing real emotional grief, but exposing a trick doesn't automatically erase the comfort that someone felt before exposure as well.

Yeah, I know a lot of, not, well, I don't know them personally, but I've heard a lot of stories about people that are psychics. but they don't always give the actual answers to whoever's asking certain questions. Sometimes they will just tell them what they want to hear, because that's a lot of the time what people are looking for. The comfort. Turning to spiritualism. Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah. Most people go to spiritualism because they want that comfort. Yeah. And like that's one of like the hardest questions. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, I was just going to say it's, it's, that's how a lot of people find faith and religion and theology. They, they go there for comfort instead. So it's, I can, I can see how people like you said, they're reunited in heaven, but with spirituality, you can talk to them.

right here right now. You don't have to wait. So I can definitely see the pool in that. And it being so new, when religion is so old, people are like, oh, look at this. Like, I can speak to my loved one now. Oh, that's so sad. I can, oh, goodness, I can't even imagine with so much death and war happening, trying to figure that out. It became an industry. Go through grief in this new way. Yeah.

Yeah. And as the movement grew, critics tried to explain the rapids physically. One theory focused on the joints on the feet, ankles and the knees. The theory became known somewhat mockingly as Toology.

Doctors in Buffalo claimed that sounds closely resembling spiritual wraps could be produced through movements in the knee joints. And in 1851, members of the Fox family

agreed to examinations because at that point they had had every single examination possible. The investigators restrained or controlled their legs. According to the doctors, the wrappings failed under those conditions. And the Fox sisters and their supporters rejected the conclusions. They argued that the atmosphere was hostile.

That's what I was going to say. Like where did they do this? like at a doctor's office, like where, you know what I mean? I guess if the argument is that the sisters themselves are haunted by spirits or surrounded by spirits, I can get that. Well, they said that the investigator suspicion interfered with the spirits. Yeah, yeah. The imposed conditions disrupted the necessary harmony. And this goes to become a pattern that continues through the paranormal investigation.

An investigator says, under control conditions, the effect disappeared. And then believers answer, the controls prevent the effect. So they're just talking circles around each other. Yeah, that's pretty much what it is. And then, of course, public committees continue to fail to expose mechanisms even after invasive searches that continued. So believers could say they have already been tested

and nothing was found. And then skeptics could answer, a testing, a testing, a test failing to catch a trick does not prove there was no trick and the sisters continued performing

and of course the controversy increases their fame now Maggie eventually meets a man who offered her a way out in 1852

while Maggie was holding seances in Philadelphia she met Dr. Elijah Kent Kane. Kane was a physician and

he was from a socially prominent Philadelphia family. He was also a skeptic. So he could not immediately explain every sound associated with the Fox Sisters.

He did believe that Maggie's career was built on deception. But despite all of that, or possibly because he imagined he could rescue her from it, he fell in love with Maggie. Oh. And their relationship survives through letters later,

through letters Maggie later published, although the collection was edited and remains a complicated source. Okay. Yeah, I can imagine her, yeah. Sorry, you don't want to air all your dirty laundry with your letters to your husband. Of course, they're going to be edited a little bit. Yeah, because his letters did, like, reveal affection, desire, class prejudice and an almost obsessive need to, like, transform Maggie. Like, like, in a controlling way or in a, like, let me help you.

get out. Okay, okay, got it. Yeah. He did see, like, intelligence and charm in her. He also saw someone whose education, family, and profession made her unacceptable within his social world. I can fix her. Yeah. He wanted to, he wanted her to, he wanted her to, he wanted her to, leave mediumship, and then he wanted her separated from Leah. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. He wanted to educate her and to save her.

But saving her meant remaking her into the kind of woman he believed should be... Typical. So, like, yeah, he loved her, but he was also embarrassed by everything that made her famous. Ah, yeah. And on top of all that, he could be emotionally inconsistent, because we love that in a man. He pursued her, withdrew, returned, expressed intense love, and then emphasize the difference in their social positions. Goodness. the hook and the cheese

the love bobbing no thanks which is interesting because nowadays we're so used to like texting back and forth and like if someone

doesn't reply in like a day or you know goes on a week without hearing from them what was it back in the day was it a month before we got a letter? Was it two weeks? Was that like too long?

That's a great question. I have no idea. Snail mail. That's a pigeon. Where are the pigeons at? Yeah. Now, before he left on an Arctic expedition in 1853, can arrange for Maggie to live in Pennsylvania

under the supervision of his relatives and receive an education. She agreed to stop performing as a medium, and that kind of required a lot because her family's livelihood was tied to the manifestations. Her sister Leah controlled so much of the work. The public knew Leah as a spirit medium. Another man she loved was asking her to abandon that identity because he believed it was shameful. So Kane departed in search of the missing British explorer John Franklin that was

why he took that Arctic expedition, and then Maggie waited. She was separated from him and distanced from her family. When Kane returned, their relationship remained unstable. Maggie later insisted that the two had entered a private marriage. Kane's family denied that a legal marriage had occurred. Oh. And the historical records remained disputed. What is not disputed is that the relationship was deeply important to Maggie.

Cain died. Goodness, all of this taking her away from her sister, her family, isolating her, and he couldn't even commit. Whatever. We're going to have a private marriage, but we're not going to have it. Yeah, it's so weird. It's private but not official. Like, what the heck? Mm-hmm.

It's probably for tax purposes. Well, Kane did die in Havana in 1857. He was still relatively young. Why is he traveling so much? Stay home with your wife that you wanted to take away from her career. Oh my goodness. That's what I'm thinking as well. I was like, you want her to like stop her like career.

Honestly, I think it was just jealousy. And then you just like that another man would like court her. I was like, if I can't have her, no one can. And I was like, Kane, stop it. Go to the Arctic. Leave her alone. Go die. Stay in the Arctic.

He did. Yeah, so he did die in Havana in 1857. Unfortunately, Maggie was devastated. She claimed that he had intended to provide for her. His family publicly minimized or denied the romantic relationship and disputed her claims. And for a time, for a time, she received some form. financial support. Eventually, even that ended amid conflict. Maggie converted to Catholicism and withdrew from public mediumship for a period. She attempted to keep the promise to Kane about leaving

mediumship behind. But at that point, Kane was dead. And apparently there was marriage wasn't official, so no one's going to support her. Yeah. His family didn't accept them as his widow. And the career that she had asked her to abandon was like one of the few reliable ways that she knew how to earn money. So Maggie eventually returned to the Knox. Now, which is kind of like tragic irony here. She spent years telling strangers that death did not end communication.

But when the person she loved died, no spirit could give her the social recognition or financial security or public legitimacy that his living family withheld. That is ironic, isn't it? And I'm like, Maggie, just start some knocking, be like, he's still here. He's telling you to like, give me money. Give me better. Yeah. I was like, Maggie, like, do you have any idea in what kind of role you are right now? Like, you and your sister, like, are probably in the best role you could be.

Just have a public seance and summon your dead husband. Yeah, and then everyone will know that she's being treated, poorly by the family, like, you know. But anyway, well, Maggie tried to leave spiritualism. Leah moved towards a more secure life. Kate continued carrying the family name. Kate reported abilities expanded far beyond simple wraps, because when you practice something, you get really good and, you know.

She became associated with automatic writing, mirror writing, and increasingly elaborated seances. During repeated seances, Kate reportedly produced manifestations connected with Livermore's deceased wife, along with appearances or writings attributed to other spirits. Charles Livermore was one of the important clients, and he was an important client because there were a wealthy banker mourning his wife. Okay, of course. Yeah, I should have given that context. I was like, Charles Livermore, wealthy banker mourning his wife. Got it.

Money is involved. The seance continued over a little bit of a little bit of. long period, which gave believers a large body of testimony. And then, of course, skeptics saw something else. A wealthy, grieving man reportedly paying for experiences that confirmed exactly what he wanted to believe, just like we talked about this earlier. Mm-hmm. But it's like, do they actually believe it?

Or are they paying to pretend that they believe it? I know it depends. I'm sure it depends on the person. But it's like they're, it's a, it's a service. Like they're, I would,

I would consider them in the service industry. You know? Like, yeah. It's the, the, the, the,

the, the, the, are, are something to explore. But, because it's like, on one hand, it could be a selfish thing.

Like, I just, like, this is my way to make money. But at the same time, like, they're providing, they're providing comfort. They're providing answers that these families want, that these families think that they need. And these families know, like, spiritualism is, I feel like they're spiritualism and religion are kind of acting as almost one and the same thing at this point in time. Yeah. Like it's like you said, it's like another science. It's a, what would I call it?

Like a hobby. Yeah. Yeah. Like women would attend mass on Sunday mornings and then in the evening or in the afternoon they would go have a seance. Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting that you can believe in both of those things at the same.

same time when nowadays we really kind of pit them against each other even though a lot of religions are heavily based in in what we consider spiritualism like like pagan practices and things like where do you think your Christmas tree comes from you know yes it's just it's really interesting to compare that yeah it takes place during the winter solstice all that stuff yeah But yeah, and in 1871, Kate traveled to England. So the move was presented as an opportunity for her to work without the pressure of earning through public sittings that she did in the States because in Britain she entered this, she entered a spiritualist community. that was eager to examine one of the original Rochester mediums. Oh, okay.

So they were very excited to like half her over. And among the people who investigated her was William Crookes. Crookes was not an unknown amateur. He was a respected chemist and physicist. He believed scientists had a duty to investigate strange phenomena rather than dismiss them without observation. And then Crook spent months examining effects associated with Kate and other mediums. He wrote that Kate's raps were unusually powerful and reliable. He concluded that at least some phenomena deserved serious scientific recognition.

And believers consider Crook's support extremely important. A respected scientist had examined an original Fox sister, an original, sorry, I just, and had not dismissed her. But Crook's work was also controversial, because, I mean, everything's controversial for someone. Critics argued that he allowed mediums too much control, that his experiments lacked sufficient safeguards, and that he was overly trusting of people who understood how to perform under observation. Okay. So some other mediums crook and doors were later accused or exposed in acts of deception.

So his involvement can't be. reduced to either a scientist's proof Kate was genuine or a foolish man saw nothing of importance. At the time, it kind of just shows how scientific training doesn't make a person immune to expectation or manipulation. Of course. And how we talked about it at the time, spiritualism was the next step in science. And it's hard. Because even science, when given new information, when given new information, you know,

can be disproven, you know? So that's so interesting because the scientific method fails quite frequently when you're basing anything you're doing on assumptions. Mm-hmm. So. And Kate's life in England also became more stable for a time. In 1872, she married Henry D. Jenkin. he was an English barrister and committed spiritualist. So, unlike her sister, she did marry someone that was...

Yeah. She did get a support of husband. They had two sons. For Kate, Maritch appeared to offer something her earlier life had rarely provided a home. a partner who respected her mediumship, a family not entirely controlled by Leah or public audiences. But Jenkin died in 1881. That's so soon, isn't it?

Yeah. They got married in 1872, and he died in 1881. Oh, at least she has our kids. Just nine years. That's so sad. Mm-hmm. So Kate was widowed with children. and then the stability collapsed.

So then in 1885, just four years after her husband passed, she would return to the United States. And unfortunately, she would start struggling with alcohol. Like her father. Mm-hmm. That tracks. So the Fox sisters' public success didn't create lasting. insecurity for the three women.

The parents, John and Margaret, died in 1865. Maggie and Kate, increasingly both of them, struggled with alcohol. It would be easy to present that as a punishment in the story. You know, they deceive people and their lives fell apart. But, you know, it's not that simple. This woman began performing as children. Let's, you know, their income depended on producing intimate emotional experiences for strangers. They were examined over and over again from a very young age.

Believers treated them as a sacred instrument. Skeptics treated them as criminals waiting to be exposed. You know, newspapers followed their scandals. every relationship became entangled with the question of whether spirits were real and alcohol didn't have to be supernatural it just had to be there it could be the addiction inside an extraordinary

unstable life Kate's automatic writings even included messages urging her to stop drinking which is interesting when you think about it. Yeah. That is interesting. Because I can see these girls after being so involved in this. Let's pretend.

Or let's, you know, in this scenario, maybe Leah did push them to try and be involved in their, medium powers and their spirituality, they could just be tapping into their, like, they're unconscious, their subconscious, you know, and thinking that that's what it is, you know? And maybe subconsciously, they somehow, even though it, you know, depends on the situation, I guess, making those, those rapping sounds,

supposedly with their toes or whatever it was. There's the toology. The toology. I can imagine this all being, but I can imagine this all stemming from that, like being pushed so hard as children developing that they literally create this subconscious persona that they themselves are believing. is spirits.

Like, so when something outside of what she thinks is outside of herself is pushing her to not drink, that could just be herself, knowing that this is something that is not good for you. And yeah, because what, like what you said, it's so true, whether it was herself consciously, her subconscious or whether it was a spirit someone saw her struggle and was telling her girl stop drinking

yeah poor thing now Leah's life moved in a different direction Leah was the older sister the one that some say pushed them into them some say that she was protective she married

she got remarried she married Daniel Underhill. He was a wealthy, spiritualist, and businessman. She became financially comfortable and largely stopped performing for money. And within the movement, she was increasingly treated as a respected founding figure. The difference would become dangerous later? Leah had helped turn the phenomenon into a career. Now she possessed wealth and respect.

Maggie and Kate, the children whose name Care at the Movement, were increasingly poor, addicted, and vulnerable. Whether Leah caused their decline or simply escaped it, the younger sisters grew to resent their older sister. I can absolutely imagine that her success grew that, yeah. Now, before the public confession that Maggie gave, Maggie went under one more major investigation. Henry Sabert was a wealthy believer in spiritualism who left money to the University of Pennsylvania under the condition that the university investigated the subject.

I just find it crazy that it was so acceptable for so many kinds of institutions to study this. Yeah. Yeah, that is so, I mean, because they don't really have, they have, like, clubs and stuff, do they still study demonology? Because I know, they do that in movies where it's like, Ooh, I'm a demonology professor, but it's, you know, it's like basically like a myths and legends type of class, not like a, you know, not like a theology. Yeah. Adjacent class.

That's interesting. I'll have to look into it. Yeah. I mean, I don't think I've ever seen that like in real life, just like in movies where they talk about it. No, no, fair, fair. Yeah. But no, yeah. So Cybert's commission began its work in the 1880s.

The commission's report is important because it didn't begin by mocking grief. The members of the committee acknowledge that intelligent people believe in spiritualism and bereaved families sought hope through it. but they also insisted that sympathy could not replace direct observations. So they wanted to examine what happened in front of them, and in 1884, Maggie sat with the commission. At first, the investigators heard sounds near her and beneath the table, but when they asked the raps to move further away, the results were unsatisfactory.

Then they tried different positions. They washed her feet. One investigator placed a hand on her foot and reportedly feeling an unusual pulsation while sounds were occurring nearby. Then they attempted the glass tumbler test, which is four glasses, were placed upside down.

Maggie stood with her toes resting on them, isolating her feet from ordinary contact within the floor. And the spirits were asked to wrap. And the experiment produced little beyond the glass clicking against one another. At one point, Maggie said, she heard a rap that no one else recorded hearing. After waiting without a clear response, the investigators classified the test as negative.

Then the group joined hands. They asked the spirit of Henry Seibert himself to respond. Nothing conclusive happened. The commission was willing to continue if Maggie believed another sitting would produce better results and then Maggie just declined. She admitted that the demonstrations

had been unsatisfactory and suggested that her health might make another sitting even worse. Now it doesn't prove that every sound she had ever produced was fraudulent but once again it's another investigation, it's another

negative or like no results were satisfactory. And what makes the report valuable is that the records that it records the process. It's not simply like we believed or like we exposed her. It records where people stood, what was attempted, what was heard, and like what

failed. Like it's detailed compared to some of the other ones. And by 1888, the conflict inside the family had become open warfare. Kate's drinking raised serious concerns about her ability to care for her sons. Leah and other leading spiritualists became involved. Efforts were made through a child protection organization to remove the boys from Kate's care. Now, from one perspective, this was an attempt to protect children living with an addicted and unstable parent. from Maggie's perspective, this was the final betrayal.

Leah had helped turn Maggie and Kate into public performers when there were children. And now as wealthy and respected woman, Leah was using social authority against Kate and threatening to take Kate's children. And Maggie sided with Kate. her anger towards Leah became intense this is the context immediately before the confession

that makes sense so Maggie was not stepping onto the stage as like a detached historian claiming correcting the records she was financially desperate she was struggling with alcohol

She was reconsidering Catholicism. Her sister's children were at risk. She wanted to hurt Leah. Now, that doesn't make the confessions false, but it does mean that the confessions had more than one purpose. Yeah, she has. So it's why people are like, exactly. Was it really you wanted to come clean?

Was it you wanted to hurt your sister? Like, what was that? the real motivation behind it. Was it exposure? Was it a paid performance? Was it an attack in a inside family war? So, once again, in March 1888, spiritualists celebrated the 14th anniversary of the Heidsville events.

Maggie and Kate, the woman whose childhood had launched the movement. received comparatively little honor. And then seven months later, Maggie made sure that no one could ignore her. She gave an interview describing the origin of the rapping as a childhood trick. She said the girls had used ordinary objects and then learned to produce sounds through their joints. And then she argued that audiences helped deceive themselves. When people expected a sound to come from a wall, they heard it from the wall. When they expected a spirit to touch them, they fell to touch.

Then on October 21st, Maggie appeared at the Academy of Music. Kate sat in the audience in support. Maggie declared spiritualism false. She blamed Leah for exploding the younger. sisters. Then she removed her shoe. She placed her foot on a stool, and then she produced the sharp audible taps. Now, doctors selected from the audience, examined her, and attributed the sounds to movements

in the joints of her large toe. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, that's probably like, like, knuckles cracking or something. Or, like, you can snap. I've seen people be able to snap with their toes. Really? Yeah, it's weird. Oh.

Now, the moment was strange because it was both exposure, but at the same time, it was another performance. Right. Because people had paid to hear Maggie make that famous sound. Once again, people were paying to hear this confession. They were desperate for money. For decades, the sounds had been presented as evidence of the spirits. And now the same sound was presented as evidence of fraud.

So either way, Maggie was still on stage. Either way, the audience was still waiting for the knocks. It proved that Maggie could create a convincing rap through her body. and it supports the explanations proposed by the earlier skeptics. Oh my goodness. Yeah, that's crazy. Because it's like she exposed it as a hoax. She had every motivation to do that anyways, even if it wasn't.

And either way, she's still considered her and her sisters are still considered, like the mothers, the founders of spiritualism. And we still do those exact same methods today. Which brings the bigger question. Even though it wasn't proven, it's still, yeah. So why did the confession fail to end the movement? Exactly. I think it's really because people, I mean, of course,

there are some people that are still making money and profiting off of it. People like fake, well, supposedly fake mediums doing that exact same thing. But also, people could just be getting answers, just still performing those same exact methods and still getting answers, still hearing the raps and the taps and the knocks when they're. asking specific questions and being able to repeat those questions in a different format and getting the same answers. Yeah. I mean, it's like a simple enough concept, but in practice, you can imagine it working.

Yeah. And when that confession happened by 1888, spiritualism didn't just belong to the Fox Sisters anymore. Like, you just mentioned. It had churches, newspapers, lectures, professional mediums, home seon circles. As we just talked about it, believers in the United States, Britain, all over the world, you know, people believe that they had personally communicated with dead children, spouses, friends. And even though Maggie confessed to create in her own wraps, she could not confess on behalf of every single medium.

Exactly. Oh, my goodness. And like we talked about it earlier, she couldn't erase every experience that she created for people. She couldn't erase, you know, the help that she gave people. that were going through grief. Exactly. That's, wow.

That's a crazy life story for all of those sisters. And the parents, too. Oh, my goodness. Mm-hmm. One of the quotes mentioned is, Our Truth was always larger than its founder. That's absolutely true. Yeah.

Yeah, it's incredible how we, we, it's just, it's so prevalent. It's still, it's still so prevalent. Like, there's, there's countless number of people online making, making content about their own version of this exact type of spiritualism and talking to, talking to spirits. And of course, working at the Winchester Mystery House, you have literal, visitors coming all the time. Like literally all the time. People revisiting too because

they've already had those legitimate experiences. We hold paranormal investigations. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. What is crazy is that

one year after denouncing spiritualism, Maggie recounted her confession. Of course she did. Of course she did. Oh my goodness. Oh, my goodness. So she said that she had been pressured.

With, yeah, with all that stuff, with her sister and her sister's kids. Yeah. Her sons, her kids. Yeah, yeah. She said that she was in a financial difficult position. Yeah. She said people hostile to the spiritualism had used to. her, she attempted to return to mediumship, that the wrappings she claimed had return,

but her old success didn't return. Yeah. So unfortunately, at this point, both sides didn't trust her. Believers and skeptics did not trust her. Yeah, yeah, it's hard to come back from that. Mm-hmm. I can imagine someone being, like for the nostalgia, literally just for the nostalgia of who she is trying to. Mm-hmm.

pay her for that. But. Yeah. The final years of the Fox Sisters, Leah died in 1890. Spiritualism, she was, with spiritualism,

she was remembered as a respected founding mother. Kate died in 1892. Her death certificate reportedly reduced. the extraordinary career of one of the most famous mediums in the world to the ordinary category of housewife, which is kind of insulting. Yes.

Very insulting. Yeah. She died so young, too. Oh, my goodness. Mm-hmm. And then Maggie died in 1893. Oh, my gosh. Just a year after.

She was poor and dependent on the help of others. The younger sisters did not reach old age. The movement they helped create continued without them. And spiritualists found a way to interpret their decline without abandoning the faith. Some said society had used sensitive mediums and then failed to protect them. The sister's addiction, poverty, and suffering were not treated us

proof of meeting. We're not treated that, we're not treated as proof that meeting ship was false. They became proof that mediums required care. And then the movement transformed their collapse into another lesson with the belief system

that even their tragedy could be absorbed. That's kind of a tragic story. My goodness. Now, let's talk about something that gets resolved. Okay. So, in 1904, years after, they're all dead, yeah.

Children were playing around in the old Hidesville cottage, the farmhouse where the Fox sisters lived. And they reportedly discovered bones behind a crumbling cellar wall. That's insane. Oh, my God. My mind is blown right now. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Everyone go back and apologize to them.

That's crazy. Yeah. And there's no way they could have known that. There's no way they could have known that. Not unless they took apart the wall. Oh. This kids were just playing around. They weren't looking for it.

Yeah. Oh. No. They didn't even know about the Fox Sisters. They were just playing around. around. Oh my gosh. So they found the bones behind a crumbling cellar wall.

Newspapers revived the murder peddler story. Believers declared vindication. The girls had said a murdered man was buried beneath the house. and now more than 50 years later, human remains had apparently been found. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Yeah, everyone apologize right now. That's crazy.

Now, the sisters confessed, you know, like years before the body was found. The body was, but the body was real. except the evidence wasn't that simple because the remains were never reliably connected to a name peddler no missing person matched the letter name the letters name um letter examination described an incomplete or inconsistent collection of bones

including animal bones. So some animal bones were mixed in there. There were also rumors that someone had planted them as a joke. The structure described as a hidden wall may have had an ordinary architectural explanation. So the discovery did not prove the original murder narrative, but it gave both sides as exactly what they needed. It gave believer bones It gave skeptics irregularities And the mystery survived

Of course Of course There's something for everyone In this story isn't there Wow So we've come full circle Oh my goodness That is incredible

Wow I love that And now you know the story of the Fox Sisters. Thank you. Oh, my goodness. That's, oh my goodness. Like, I was already, the coming out and saying that I was a hoax, that was already a plot twist. The bones?

The bones? That was crazy. That was insane. I was not expecting that at all. No one was. God. Oh my gosh. Wow. That, that's, that's crazy. Mm-hmm. Those poor girls, though, because either way, whether, whether they were faking it or not,

they had extremely hard lives, extremely difficult lives. Oh, definitely. Oh, those poor girls. From a very young age. Yeah. Yeah, it's like basically being a child actor, you know. Honestly, yeah. And fame.

Fame is, oh, goodness gracious. We just saw it really hurts children. It could corrupt, yeah. Oh, my goodness. Well, I hope wherever they are, they are happy now and healthy. Mm-hmm. And they can see what a huge. global difference they have made.

Wow. Yeah. Wow. I'm speechless. I'm speechless. Your reaction was incredible for that. But yeah, Issa, thank you for joining me for this very long and incredibly complicated story with so many twists and turns. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Thank you. Thank you for telling me. That was crazy. My goodness, that's awesome to know now where spiritualism, as we know it, came from. That is so cool. Thank you, Jay.

Of course. You're welcome. Now, before I let you go, where could the listeners find you? Oh, goodness. They can find me on Instagram. My Instagram is Issa K. Alohi 37. And I, I don't know, I repost a lot of fun cosplay stuff and art and things. Me, myself, baby bat, goth, and hoping to do some more acting. I'd love to be back at Winchester Mystery House for this next haunt coming up. So we'll see about that. But yeah, thank you. Yes, of course.

Thank you, listeners, and we'll see you next time. Thanks for listening to Chambers of the Occult. For photo, sources, or anything else mentioned during the episode, check out our website at chambersof the occult.com. You'll find everything you need there if you need to find yourself wanting more. You can also follow us on all our socials at Chambers of the Occult and Twitter at COT podcast.

If you have any questions, comments, recommendations, person anecdotes or concerns let us know. Fill out our contact form on our website, email us at Chambers of the occult at gmail.com, or leave us a message on our socials. We would love to hear from you. And if you enjoyed what you heard, we would greatly appreciate it if you dropped a like. Leave a comment and subscribe. It is absolutely the best way to share your support. It would mean the world. Until next time.