A Teacher
The Fox Sisters
Two teenage sisters whose mysterious rappings in a Hydesville farmhouse lit the fuse of modern Spiritualism.
The transmission
Margaret (Maggie) Fox (1833–1893) and her younger sister Catherine (Kate) Fox (1837–1892) were sisters from upstate New York whose claims of communicating with a spirit through rapping noises began in Hydesville in March 1848.
Their public demonstrations, starting at Corinthian Hall in Rochester in 1849, helped ignite the Spiritualist craze across the United States and Europe. In 1888 Margaret publicly confessed before an audience at the New York Academy of Music that the raps had been produced by cracking the joints of their toes, though the movement they sparked continued to flourish.
What they gave
The Hydesville rappings: Their 1848 claims of communicating with a spirit through rapping noises are conventionally treated as the founding event of modern Spiritualism.
- First celebrity mediums: Public demonstrations from Corinthian Hall in Rochester in 1849 ignited a Spiritualist craze across the United States and Europe.
- The 1888 confession: Margaret publicly confessed at the New York Academy of Music that the raps were produced by cracking her toe joints.
- A movement outliving its origin: The Spiritualism they sparked continued to flourish despite that recantation.
The line they stand in
Taught by / Influenced by: The visionary writings of Emanuel Swedenborg and the trance teaching of Andrew Jackson Davis; promoted by their elder sister Leah Fox.
- Taught / Influenced: Andrew Jackson Davis; later champions of Spiritualism including Arthur Conan Doyle and the scientist William Crookes.
Revelations they taught
Essential Works
- The Death-Blow to Spiritualism (confession in the New York World)1888