The Fox Sisters and the Emergence of Spiritualism and Seances

Since the beginning of time, humans have tried to reach beyond the veil that separates the living and the dead. Tonight we’ll tell the story of three sisters who claimed to make that connection. We’ll explore the ripples that claim made in their own lives – and in our own.  

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Jenna Sullivan and I'm Jen Lee.
And we'd like to welcome you tobeneath your bed, a podcast
where we drag out all thosefears that lurk beneath our beds
from the paranormal to truecrime, to the simply strange
along the way, we'll be drinkingcocktails and sharing stories
from our Appalachianupbringings.
Since the beginning of time,humans have tried to reach

(00:21):
beyond the veil that separatesthe living and the dead tonight.
We'll tell the story of threesisters who claim to make that
connection.
We'll explore the ripples thatclaim made in their lives and in
our own

Speaker 2 (00:41):
[inaudible]

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Jen, how are you?
I'm doing great.
How are you doing?
I'm doing okay.
You know, it's labor day.
I've had a really, I guess I'verested from my labor today.
I haven't done much.
I took a really long nap withthe cats.
What about you?
Um, I did some cooking and I ransome errands and when I go
outside now, I noticed that Ican't really tell the seasons
apart.
I'm thinking is this fall is asummer.

(01:03):
I mean, I guess with globalwarming, we're kind of losing
the seasons anyway, but I thinkwith being in the house with
COVID, that's really throwingthings off to at least for me.
What are you having to drink?
Oh, right.
My drink.
How could I forget?
So I'm having something called ablack widow smash.
I found a recipe online and ituses tequila.
So yeah, this has, um, I had to,in the cocktail shaker, you

(01:25):
throw in a bunch of blackberriesand fresh Rosemary and honey,
there was one other thing.
Oh, lemon juice.
And then you muddle it.
So it muddled it all up.
And then I poured in the tequilaand some bitters and shook it
and then you strain it over ice.
And then you add littlesparkling water to the top of
it.
I'm starting to see honey as aningredient and more and more
cocktails or maybe it juststands out because it seems like

(01:47):
it's just such a unusualingredient.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How do you feel about honey anda cocktail?
I love honey, but I don't know.
I don't know if I'd like it in acocktail.
I mean, there's something that'scalled the bee's knees, but I
think was around sinceprohibition and that was with
honey.
And then also I believe Jen, butit might've been a honey syrup.
I could probably do a honeysyrup.
I do have some honey bittersthough.

(02:09):
I haven't tried out yet.
Oh, did you make those bitters?
No, actually I ordered those.
I'm going to have to order somebitters cause I was looking
everywhere for orange bittersfor this drink and couldn't find
them.
So I had just had to use aregular Angostura bitters.
You hated my bidders when wewent away, they were strong.
But you know, I think I wasn'tas into cocktails then I was
less of a drunk.

(02:31):
So I think I would appreciatethem now.
I really do.
I think the taste has evolved.
Was I trying to get you to drinkit straight or just give you the
cherry or I feel like, I can'tremember.
I feel like you were trying toget me to drink it straight.
You're like Jed tried settersand I was like, it was kind of
intense.
It was an intense experience,but I would try your bitters

(02:53):
again.
Especially if you make orangebitters or something like that.
That would be cool.
We should do that together.
Once COVID is in addition tomaking our syrups, we should do
better.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
I do have like, I have orange and fig bitters.
I have, um, you name it.
I have the lavender bitters Ihave.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
That would be good in that bees knees.
I don't know if that goes inthere, but it seems like bitters
with honey and gin.
I'm like, but what are youhaving?
I'm actually having,

Speaker 3 (03:19):
I mean, a hurricane, you know, um, last week I, I did
a Mai tie that didn't turn outso hot.
So this is involves passion,fruit puree, and also has a
bunch of Rome in it.
And my favorite of course, andthen also Grenadines so plenty
of rum, light, rom dark rum andpassion, fruit and orange juice

(03:39):
and grenadine.
So it's actually pretty good.
The passion fruit puree.
I got that of course off Amazon,but it's really, it's just a lot
of sugar.
So I would like to try to makesome myself, it would probably,
I would think would be better.
Hopefully.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
Well, let's jump into the story since we both have our
drinks and we are ready.
So tonight I'm going to talkabout spiritualism, especially
through the lives of these threesisters, by the name of Maggie,
Kate and Leah Fox, really Maggieand Kate are the main
characters.
I'm going to go through mysources, but I think I'll do
that at the end.
So the story I'm going to tellyou tonight combines a lot of

(04:15):
things that I love.
And these are things that Ithink you love too.
So I'm hoping that you will likethis story.
So it combines history,especially women's history.
It has the mysterious entails ofspirits and ghosts.
And it really looks into thevery nature of life and death
itself.
It's populated with vibrant andunforgettable characters and at
the heart of the story.
As I mentioned, our two girls,sisters whose lives unfolded

(04:39):
very differently than theaverage 19th century woman.
So are you ready?
I am.
All right.
Spiritualism was a movement thatbegan in the 19th century and it
actually continues today,although in a somewhat different
form and I'll get that, I'll getto that later.
The spiritualist believe thatpeople do not die, but instead
they move on to the realm ofspirit.

(05:00):
They believe that the living cancommunicate with the dead.
Although spiritualists hate theword dead.
They don't really like to useit.
Instead.
They referred to them assomebody who's gone in spirit or
they might call them the dearlydeparted in their belief system.
Also assumes that those who arein spirit are on a higher level
than those of us who are stillon earth and that our spirit

(05:21):
guides can help us through thislife and help us really learn
the lessons that we're supposedto learn down here.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
I wonder where my spirit God is at.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
I don't, I don't know.
Do you think you have one?
I've been wondering lately.
If I have one, when I went tobed last night, I'm like, I
wonder what my spirit guides aredoing.
Are they around me?
I can guarantee you.
I don't have one.
I think you might have a bunchjust to keep you in line.
I mean,

Speaker 3 (05:44):
I'd be living a different life if I think if I
had a spirit guide,

Speaker 1 (05:47):
No, you definitely have a spirit guide.
If there, if there such is sucha thing, you have one I'm sure
of it.
So there are a couple of guys Iwant to tell you about who were
really precursors to ism.
And they're just interesting toknow about, so you may have
heard of them.
One is Emanuel Swedenborg.
He lived from the late 16hundreds into while he lived a
long time up to 1772, but heclaimed that he could

(06:09):
communicate with spirits, but hecautioned anybody else from
doing it.
And he said, it wasn't a goodidea.
Only, only he should be doingthis.
And he came up with this ideathat there's not one heaven or
one hell, but there's really awhole bunch of different ones.
And they're all on differentlevels.
To me, it almost sounds likeDante is notion of the Inferno.
You know, where there are, thereare all these layers and he

(06:29):
thought that spirits acted asintermediaries between God and
human beings.
So he's a precursor.
The other one who had some, Iguess you would say bearing on
spiritualism, his name wasMesmer and you may be familiar
with that term.
Mesmerist he, he studied, he wasreally kind of a prodo
psychologist in studied how toput people into trances with

(06:50):
hypnosis.
So they would talk aboutmesmerizing or another word they
used was magnetizing, which theymeant not to literally make
somebody magnetic, but to putthem in this kind of a trance.
And so a lot of the mediums inthe 19th century did go into
what looked like these tranceStates.
I mean, so the story ofspiritualism is inextricable
from the lives of the twosisters living in 1840s, New

(07:13):
York.
And as I mentioned earlier,their names are Maggie and Kate
Fox.
And their story is interestingfor all kinds of reasons.
But one of the reasons isbecause it intersects with some
really notable figures inhistory.
Their story also unfolds duringa really dynamic time in
American history.
So this was a time when thecountry was moving from a rural
economy to moreindustrialization in the cities.

(07:35):
People were sick of the oldgloomy Calvinist doctrine of
predestination.
This idea that you may be doomedto hell and there's nothing you
can do about it.
So they were moving towards moreoptimistic, forward thinking
religious movements.
And this is of course is alsothe era of the abolitionists
movement of the suffragettemovements.
And it was a time when sciencewas also on the rise.

(07:55):
And so you would see sometensions between science and
religion.
And of course the right in themiddle of the 19th century,
there's the civil war, you know,already there was a growing
interest in mediums and spiritcommunications, but it wasn't
until strange happenings in alittle one-bedroom cabin in
Hydesville New York, which is inWestern New York, that the
movement fully came to be sospiritual ism.

(08:18):
It emerged, as I said in WesternNew York, and this was called
the burned over district, Ithink that's such a, such a
funny name, but it was calledthat because of the spirit of
revival, which had beenspreading throughout the area
during what was known as thesecond grade awakening.
So there was a lot ofevangelical religions really
going through there and tryingto get everybody on board with

(08:38):
their particular religion.
And it seems that many earthshaking messages were being
passed down from on high aroundme, sleepy communities during
this time in 1823, somebody bythe name of Joseph Smith, who
you may have heard of says hereceived a set of golden plates
from the angel Merona and youcan you guess what that was
translated into the book ofMormon?

(08:59):
Yep.
So another religious movementthat was going on around this
time was in the 1830s.
There was this wacky New Yorkfarmer.
He was also a Baptist preachernamed William Miller.
And he started going aroundtelling people in the community
that the world was going to end.
And so apparently October 22nd,1844 was the final day.
So would you believe almost ahundred thousand people

(09:20):
gathered?
They sold everything.
They had, they converged in thislittle town in New York and they
just sat there waiting for Godto come.
And so this religion was knownas militarism.
It's not obviously not as wellknown or didn't, didn't catch on
as well as Mormonism.
And I kind of wonder, like, whatdid they do after nothing
happened?

Speaker 3 (09:37):
I would like to think that I, I couldn't imagine that,
but my mom had told me, ofcourse it always goes back to
Appalachians, but she told me asa child that the sky had turned
red, I guess just how you seepretty sunsets or just very
vibrant colors.
And of course I couldn't justleave it at that.
So she remembers like neighborsand people being out in their

(09:59):
yards crying and holding eachother.
Cause they thought, um, it wasthe end of the world.
Oh my God was this when she wasa kid.
Yeah.
And that, you know, God wascoming and the apocalypse and
all of that stuff, but she wasyoung.
But you also have to remember,this is, you know, my, my
grandmother who used Appalachianfolk remedies, such as having my

(10:21):
mom drank water that had minnowsin it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I found out what that wasfor too.
Oh, you did?
What was it?
Four?
I asked her the other day andshe said, she said, are you
making fun of me?
And, um, it was used for croup.
So she was made to do it.
And she went along with it morethan once.
So it was, I think it wasmultiple times when she had the

(10:43):
crew

Speaker 1 (10:44):
Or if it helped her, did she say no, I think she
would, she probably just got aterrible GI infection from it.

Speaker 3 (10:52):
Yeah.
So

Speaker 1 (10:54):
Beliefs can be really powerful sometimes.
I think, although something maynot work scientifically, it may
work because you believe in it.
Um, so the story about the Foxsisters, as I mentioned, it
begins in their little tinylittle house.
They were living and they werehaving another house built.
So for the time being thefamily, it was the mom and dad
and then the two young girls.
So they were living in there.
It only had one bedroom.

(11:15):
And so the family, they would,they would sleep together in the
one bedroom.
And this was in March of 18.
God was in 1848 I think.
And so they hear, they start tohear these really weird sounds.
So they were, they sounded likethese wraps and taps and they
were coming from all over theroom and they would be really
loud.
Sometimes it would sound likethey were above them.

(11:36):
Sometimes they would sound likethey were on, you know, on the
left, on the right.
And this went on for many, manynights.
Would that freak you out if you,if you started hearing something
like that?

Speaker 3 (11:46):
Oh yeah.
I mean, if I just hear a creakin the house, now it kind of
freaks me out a bit or when I'mat my parents' house and I was
there, I guess last week I knowit was Friday and I kept hearing
all this creaking and I justkept hearing things and I'm
like, okay, this is an olderhouse.
So yeah, that, that's the thingcompletely freaks me out.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
It freaks me out too.
I don't want to hear a lot in myhouse.
Thankfully.
I know when we first bought it,I thought, what if I've just
bought a haunted house becausethe door does kind of Creek and
it's kind of a creepy lookingdoor, but thankfully I have not
felt anything.
So knock on wood, I'm going towrap them on my, on my desk.
Anyway.
So the mother, her name wasMargaret.
She began after a couple oflights of this.

(12:26):
She starts trying to communicatewith whatever it was that was
making the raps.
So she starts asking itquestions.
So she would ask, are you human?
You know, where are you from?
Um, but so she received theseanswers, which of course she,
they were her interpretations.
Uh, I think she had developed asystem where like the, the
spirit, cause it said it was aspirit, according to her that

(12:47):
like wrap ones for yes or twofor no.
So that she, she had developed asystem.
And so eventually it, whateverit was told her that it was the
spirit of a murdered peddler.
So this guy who went around thevillage, selling crap off of his
cart, he had been murdered inthe house and he was buried in
the basement.
So this is the story she gets.
So they don't really say how shereacted, except she wanted, she

(13:08):
wanted her neighbors to come andsee.
So she sent her husband out intothe cold and he goes and gets
this neighbor.
Her name is Mary Redfield.
And she comes and then, becauseit's a small town, there's a
bunch of other neighbors whohear the commotion.
So they come to, and before, youknow, it like half the town is
there and they come and check itout.
So one thing that I wanted tosay is that people of this era,

(13:29):
you know, the mid 19th century,they really seemed very, very
open to stories of spirits andjust weird things.
Like if you think about themilitarism thing, they were just
open to a lot of different ideasand ghost stories.
I found this really fascinating.
They were actually a regularfeature in some newspapers in
the 19th century.
I mean, and I'm not talking likethe national Enquirer, I'm

(13:51):
talking about regular reputablenewspapers.
Like there was one paper, forexample, that reported on the
ghost of a 16 year old girl,living in Baltimore who had been
murdered by her father.
Apparently she came back tohaunt him.
So these, these things werecovered in the papers.
It was a different time.

Speaker 3 (14:05):
I mean, do you think people aren't open to it now?

Speaker 1 (14:08):
Well, no, it, as I was saying that I was almost
thinking, I think, I thinkpeople are, but I don't think
it's as mainstream, maybe as itwas then.
Like, I think it's a little morelike a niche thing, but you
know, so you see stuff likethat.
What do you think?

Speaker 3 (14:22):
Sure.
I mean, when you say that, but Istill think people are very open
to this type of thing.
I mean, I had a friend and thishas been a years ago while
associate and she was goingthrough a bad breakup, let's say
with Lori and Lori had split upwith her and she was really,
really down in the dumps aboutit.
So she gets hooked on this.

(14:43):
Um, do you remember the psychicfriends that work?

Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yes, I do.
I never called it, but I doremember it.
I believe

Speaker 3 (14:49):
That's what she got involved with.
And I think at the time, and ofcourse this is years and years
and years ago, I think she spentlike$10,000.
Did she really?
Yeah.
That figure sticks out in myhead.
And on top of that, Laurie hadto get a restraining order on
her.
So it didn't work out so well,

Speaker 1 (15:05):
.
I wonder what they were tellingher.
I mean, do you think they weretelling her stuff?
She wanted to hear, like theycould tell what she wants.

Speaker 3 (15:11):
You're okay.
They weren't.
Cause I remember she would,whenever I was cornered by her,
I remember like some of thethings that she would say, I'm
thinking, Oh my God, this issuch.
Cause they were, they were justtelling her things and leading
her to believe that she wasgoing to get back together with
this person, Lori.
And she ends up gettingrestraint, restraint and

(15:32):
Sterling.
Right.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
Did she turn out like did her life turn out?
Okay.

Speaker 3 (15:36):
I don't think so.
I haven't seen her in such along time, but yeah, she was
heading a, in a, in the wrongdirection at that time.
I never told you that.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
No, I've I know a lot of your stories, but it's always
cool when I hear a new one.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:49):
I completely forgot about that one.
Anyway.
Hopefully

Speaker 1 (15:52):
Even when we're 80, we'll still have new stories to
tell you.

Speaker 3 (15:54):
I think that's great.
Like when you, you know, youknow, somebody really, really
well, but there's still like athousand stories to be told that
you've never discussed before.

Speaker 1 (16:05):
Exactly.
Cause you get to know peoplebetter and it's yeah.
That's just, it's funny.
The stories you don't even thinkof.
Sometimes that drag drop whenyou're talking about stuff.
So getting back to Maggie andKate and their story, they had
this older sister named Leah andshe was 35 and they were only, I
should have told you earlier howold they were.
I think Kate was younger.
So she was about 11 at the timeall of this was happening and

(16:29):
which was 1848.
And then Maggie was Maggie wasabout 14.
So Leah is like a wholegeneration older than them.
And Leah was living inRochester.
She had a young daughter, Lizzie, who I think was also about 13
or 14, but there had been nosign of her husband for many a
years.
I think I read that her husbanddisappeared when she was about

(16:49):
15.
So I don't know how old she waswhen she got married,

Speaker 3 (16:52):
But her husband disappeared when

Speaker 1 (16:55):
Yeah, like she was 15, I think so.
Cause they said, um, she was 35and he had ran off 20 years ago.
Wouldn't they make her 15 for mydoing math role.
No, no you're doing, you'redoing it, right?
Yeah.
So I don't know at what age theygot married, but it was never
clear.
Like did they break up?
Did he, did he die?
Did he run off?

(17:15):
So there were in, she would telldifferent versions of this over
the years.
Maybe she killed him that justnow popped into my mind, but who
knows what happened?
So anyway, um, it wasn't clearwhether she was widowed or what,
but she was, she was a singlemom basically in the 18, 1840s.
She

Speaker 3 (17:30):
Was, uh, she was the original Carole Baskin.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
So anyway, a month had passed before Leah in
Rochester living with her kid,um, before she even hears what's
going on.
Cause even though, you know,Heightsville was probably, so
Rochester's probably about 60miles from Buffalo and then
Hinesville is a little, I thinkSouth of that for similar in
between there, I think I'mgetting my geography kind of
wrong, even though I used tolive in that area.

(17:55):
But anyway, it's probably aboutan hour and a half away by car
today, but it would take a fullday or more of travel for her to
get there from Rochester.
So when she did get a letterthat told her what was going on,
she like, you know, hooks up thehorse and buggy and gets there
as fast as she can.
And she consults with herparents and they decide the best
thing to do is for Leah thatthey're going to separate the
sisters and that they're goingto take that Lee is going to

(18:17):
take Kate back to Rochester withher and that Maggie will stay
with the parents.
I guess their idea was that ifthey split up the girls that
maybe whatever was cause they,they, they kind of started to
think that the wrappings wererelated to the girls in some
way.
So that was their plan.
And I think, you know, it makessense.
So anyway, so that's what theydo.
But the first night, this isfunny to me the first night they

(18:38):
get back to Rochester, Kate andLizzie, you know, her cousin,
they go to bed and it's a wildand crazy night.
Their wrappings, like the wholehouse sounds like it's shaking.
It's just completely insane.
And so it, you know, and itcontinues to happen and it
doesn't happen during thedaytime.
It only happens once everybodygoes to bed and, but over time,
you know, I guess a few weekspass and Leah kind of seems to

(19:01):
start to get into it.
And she had sort of a sense ofhumor.
Um, she wrote this book calledthe missing link and she talks
about how she started talking towhatever it was that she thought
was in the room.
And she called him old flatfootand she asked him if he could
dance the Highland fling.
And she said, she sang to himand he danced most admirably.
So she kind of played with thespirits and thought they were

(19:23):
cool.
And then in time she startedintroducing Kate to some friends
of hers, some fairly prominentpeople in the community.
It's important to say probablythat Leah was a social climber.
She really wanted a better lotin life than what she had.
So she was always trying to likealways try and move into bigger
houses.
She was always renting, but shetried to like rent a slightly
nicer house, you know?

(19:43):
And then after six months moveagain and try to meet more and
more people.
So anyway, she introduced Kate,these two, this couple, their
names were Isaac and Amy postand they were a couple of
prominent Quaker reformers.
So they were, they were reallyinto like the abolitionist
movement, the suffragettemovement, things like that.
So at first Amy and Isaac areskeptical, but it doesn't take

(20:04):
long before they're really wonover and, and they believe they
believe what's going on.
Eventually Maggie comes andjoins Kate and Leah and
Rochester and the three of themstart to hold seances or spirits
circles in the Rochestercommunity.
So what are their abilitiestraveled in before?
You know, it, they wereattracting people, not just from
Rochester, but from surroundingcounties.

(20:25):
And people were really justflocking blocking to the house,
trying to be part of these, um,these spirits circles they were
holding and they had, there waseverybody from evangelical
preachers came radical reformersskeptics came to try to debunk
what was going on.
And then you had what I think isthe saddest of all people who
were really grief, strickenpeople, who'd lost their

(20:45):
children and other ones.
And honestly, seances attracteda lot of people who were
suffering after the death of aloved one.
And you know, during this timethere was a lot of death to go
around death permeated, nearlyevery corner of 19th century
life.
It was just in the culture.
I mean they, little kids wouldbe taught to sing songs about
death,

Speaker 3 (21:05):
A thing before them, or is this what it is?

Speaker 1 (21:08):
I think this is, this is really when it starts, there
may have been like a little bithappening before this, but this
is really, this is when it'sreally born as far as I
understand it.
So it's, it's interesting thatit would happen in this time.
You know, it just seems kind oflike the perfect time for it
because around this time too,they were also, people were
building these beautiful.

(21:30):
I don't even know what to callthem.
Park-like cemeteries where theyhave these gorgeous monuments
and there was all this symbolismwith the graves and people would
go there and they would havepicnics and they would walk and
they would enjoy nature and kindof contemplate what it meant to
be alive and to be dead and tocommune with their dead loved
ones.
And there was really thissentimental notion of death and

(21:50):
what it meant to have abeautiful death.
Um, Victorians were obsessedwith the idea of a good death,
but the real world was verydifferent from that.
Of course.
And a lot of the diseases iswe've.
We talked about tuberculosis inan earlier episode, you know,
there was just so much illnessand contagion contagion that was
just rampant throughout thistime.
And of course, if you're talkingabout death, can't really get

(22:12):
any more death than in the1860s.
When you have the massivecasualties of the civil war,
which leads me to, to a footnotethat, that I find interesting
during her time in the whitehouse, Mary Todd Lincoln, it was
really sad.
They lost their son, Willie,when he was only 11, he actually
died while they were living inthe white house.
So Mary actually had severalseances.
Apparently Lincoln knew aboutthem.

(22:32):
I think maybe he attended one,but he didn't really go in for
it.
Like she did

Speaker 3 (22:36):
Welcome to the distraction.
He probably did.

Speaker 1 (22:39):
He's like Mary, you do your seances.
I got work to do here, savingthe union.
So there was a lot of death, butthere was nothing depressing or
even creepy about these seances.
In fact, they were described asvery lively.
Um, and, and they start doingthe sisters, start doing spirit
sessions for larger and largergatherings of people.
And they did this bigperformance in Rochester's
Corinthian hall, which was kindof like, I guess the Carnegie

(23:02):
hall of the day.
And this is the first time thatthey allowed themselves to be
strip searched, to satisfy theirskeptics.
And this part freaks me outbecause they're still young
girls at this point.
So what was called a committeeof ladies takes them into a
separate room to be undressedand searched.
And I read that they, they wouldmanipulate their limbs.
I don't know, like spread theirlegs apart to put their arms

(23:24):
above their head and do all thisstuff.
Apparently they had their undergarments on, but you know, they
would feel them up to make surethere was nothing in their
clothes.
I mean, it's really awful.
And the account I was readingabout this said that the girls
were so upset.
They were so mortified that theywere crying and just screaming.
And eventually Amy post, theirQuaker friend came in and put
this all, put a stop to this andthem.

(23:45):
Um, but it wouldn't be, itwouldn't be the last time they
were strip searched.
This happened several times.
That's revolting.
It is really revolting.
Absolutely.
And you know, I think it, itleads to something else.
That's, that's part of theirstory, which is, there was
almost an erotic element.
Some of these seances, you know,today, if you go, if you go to a

(24:06):
sale it's most likely, or like aspirit reading, it's most likely
gonna take place in somebody's,you know, sitting room or
something with a couch.
But back then, um, it would bepitch black and there usually
would be a round table andeverybody would sit around the
table and usually you would holdhands.
So you might be with strangersor maybe you're with somebody,
you kind of liked, but you'renot together.
And so there's this, you know,electric kind of current people

(24:28):
touching.
And then sometimes in the dark,the spirits would be known to
touch people in whatever places.
I don't know where, whereeverybody got touched, but, but
so some, some interesting thingscould happen in the dark and the
girls, as they got older, theywere described as very
attractive and very attractive.
Um, like men really took aliking to them.
Kate was described as atheoretical, but Maggie was also

(24:49):
good looking in a more, morekind of a solid way.
Both of them had dark hair andtheir skin was described as fair
almost to the point oftranslucent.
I also read that some women werereally, they were really jealous
of the girls.
So when their men, when theirhusbands would go to these
seances or go see them, youknow, perform in one of these
larger halls, they would bereally, like thinking the girls

(25:11):
were trying to steal theirhusbands.
Isn't that crazy?
That is crazy jealousy.
Um, so as the Fox sisters cometo greater prominence, they were
seen as flouting.
What was really proper for awoman of their class and
station.
You know, the proper woman wassupposed to be at home, either a
wife or a mother of she wasn'tmarried yet to be in her
parent's home and sort ofpreparing for, for marriage and

(25:33):
motherhood.
But she certainly, wasn'tsupposed to be on a stage
holding hands and talking tospirits and you know, a lady
also wouldn't let herself behandled to be strip searched.
God forbid, you know, youwouldn't take off your
crinoline.
Um, so they were, you would,yeah.
I, I, I don't know.
I don't think I'd give up mycrinoline or my hoop skirt,
cause I want to wear it so bad,but maybe they could take off,

(25:56):
my course might need to breathefor a minute.
So, u m, you know, the girlswere always, o r the women by
this point, young women, theywere always trying to attain
this middle-class security andrespectability, but they were
always just outside of it.
So like, even though they weremaking money with what they were
doing, the nature of what theydid made them sort of be on the
fringes of society, but there'ssomething about 19th century

(26:19):
spiritualism, which is so inkeeping with the American
middle-class idea ofself-improvement a nd this idea
of reaching beyond what'spossible, you know, this was the
era of the railroad.
And I had never realized untilI've been reading about it
lately, just what a big deal,the building of the railroad
was, it really rocked people'sworlds.
You know, this connecting of oneside of the country to the
other, I like to think of therailroad is it's really the 19th

(26:41):
century equivalent of theinternet for us today.
And it was also the century oftranscendentalism.
And there are all these kinds ofsocial experiments going on.
Like you have Brook farm inMassachusetts and it was a time
Brooke farm was this experimentby Bronwyn Alden.
He was Louisa may Alcott's I'msorry, Bronwyn, Bronson, sorry,

(27:03):
Bronson Alcott.
He was Louisa may Alcott's dad.
And it was this idea that Ithink they lived in a place
called Fruitland maybe.
And people from people from thecommunity would come and live.
It was like this commune typething.
And the idea that they weregoing to have a perfected
society, it failed as you canimagine, it didn't work out very

(27:23):
well.
I don't know if they slept witheach other or not.
I don't think they did.
I think they just like theyfarmed and they tried to
maintain this, you know, rurallifestyle and talk about all
their transcendentalist stuff,but it, it didn't work out so
well, but a lot of socialexperimentation was going on.
And then of course, 1850 islike, you're approaching those
cataclysmic years of the civilwar and people are grappling

(27:45):
with the evil of slavery andthen women are just beginning to
sound their voices for the vote.
So it's a really, really dynamictime.
And this is the context in whichthese young women are living in.
And I think that has a lot, Ithink it has a lot to do with
their lives.
So before long, the sistersstart touring cities in the
Eastern United States.

(28:05):
So like they went to Troy, NewYork, Cleveland, New York, New
York city that is, and by thistime Leah who, she also decided
that she had medium capabilities.
So she starts to hold seances aswell.
Um, and she is basically theirimpresario.
I mean, I like to think of heras their pimp really she's
pumping them out, she's settingup, you know, their engagements

(28:26):
and connecting them with peoplein society and helping them
money.
And, and yet you described heras a, a bit of a social climber,
so absolutely.
Yeah, there was nothing shy ormodest about Leah.
She was all about just puttingit out there.
And really, I mean, her sisterswere the ones that people were
interested in on her.

(28:47):
So she, she used them in asense, cause they're mostly when
they went to these differentcities, the crowds were
friendly, but you know, I thinkof Kate Maggie's working girls
and you know, usually you saythat about prostitutes for sex
workers, I should say, but theywere, um, they were working
really hard and it was very, Idon't know, it was very personal
kind of work.
You know, you're having to,like, you have to talk to

(29:09):
grieving people and people whoare doubting you and you know,
you have to put this performanceon over and over and over and
over.
And sometimes they would see, inaddition to doing these
engagements, they would haveprivate sittings with people.
And it would be like one afteranother one time Maggie went
alone.
Cause I would split up sometimesand visit some of these cities
by themselves.
So Maggie went alone to Troy NewYork and she had a really bad

(29:31):
experience with a crowd that wassuper nasty.
Um, I mentioned that some of thewomen were jealous and I think
that had something to do withwhat happened, but the whole
crowd got up, got out of hand.
I think they were pelting herwith like rocks and stuff,
apparently rumor of an app, anassassination attempt.
So she was going to get killed.
So that was really scary.
And they did have some badexperiences like that by this

(29:52):
point they were famous.
And this book that I read thatI'll, I'll give the source at
the end.
Um, the author, her name isBarbara Weisberg.
She says that the modern notionof celebrity was also a 19th
century invention.
So it's, it's the birth ofmodern celebrity.
Surprisingly, another kind oftechnology that was becoming
more popular at the time wasmagic, which was considered by

(30:13):
its practitioners.
Almost all of them were male tobe a technical, even a
scientific art and their workmade use of optics, chemistry
and rational processes thatcreated a sense of illusion and
mediums are people who talk withspirits.
On the other hand, these werealmost always women.
And like that fascinates me.
I could just think about thisand read about this forever.

(30:34):
Like think men have always beenmore associated with science and
technology.
I mean, even now, like there'sthis big push to get girls
involved in STEM and things likethat.
But Weisberg and her, her bookabout the sisters talks about
how for centuries, I mean, goingback to probably medieval times,
maybe even before women havebeen identified with witchcraft
and the healing arts, like, uh,I don't know, what do you call

(30:55):
those?
Not which, which you women are,um, there's a, isn't there an
Appalachian term for grannywomen or any women?
Yeah.
Granny women.
Yep.
Yeah.
So that kind of thing, and maybewomen were considered more
theorial than men that theywere, I think also it's like
women were considered a conduitor a vessel that spirit talked
through, whereas men had toomuch of, we're seen to have too

(31:16):
much of their own, their ownpersonality to like own agency
at exactly.
Exactly.
So if you think that love is akind of magic, both Maggie and
Kate had magic in their lives,but for each of them, their love
affairs ended very tragically.
Maggie met this man.
His name was Elijah Kent Kane.
And he was an Explorer who, um,like a sailor who explored the

(31:38):
Arctic.
Um, he became very, very smittenwith her very quickly.
And she, she was kind of leeryof him at first.
Cause he was, he was a fair bitolder, but eventually he kind of
started to win her over.
But he was, they were separatedby, by a wide social sphere.
So he came from a very prominentwell-to-do family.
And of course Maggie is aspirit, you know, spirit talker

(32:00):
or whatever.
So, um, Maggie and Kate wereliving a comfortable
middle-class lifestyle by thispoint because they were making,
bringing in quite a bit ofmoney, but they didn't have
that.
As I mentioned before, thatmiddle-class respectability
because of, because of the workthey were doing.
So King was initially reallydrawn to Maggie because he had
attended some of her seances andyou just thought there was
something just other worldlyabout her.

(32:21):
He thought she was so beautiful,but as they started to kind of
form their relationship, he wasnot happy that she was living
this lifestyle.
He really wanted her to besomething different.
And to be honest, Maggie wasalso getting kind of tired of
this work.
You know, I talked before aboutjust how grueling it could be.
And there was a part of her thatreally wanted to be, just be a
regular woman, you know,whatever that means.

(32:42):
So Kane was initially drawn toMaggie because he had attended
some of her say dances.
And from the very moment he sawher, he was just enchanted with
her.
He thought that she, there wassomething so other worldly and
beautiful about her.
But once they began to form anattachment and a relationship,
he didn't like the fact that shewas doing the spirit work.
And to be honest, Maggie herselfwas getting kind of sick of it.

(33:04):
And she started to really longto know what it would be like to
just settle down and live thelife of a normal 19th century
woman.
So Kane, um, he's traveling alot.
He goes off on these Arcticvoyages.
So he seals the engagement bygiving her a ring and inside the
ring with some of his deadbrother's hair,

Speaker 3 (33:22):
He seems a bit of a weirdo.
Anyway, he did

Speaker 1 (33:25):
Because they did have a secret marriage.
And this is another sign that hewas probably a weirdo.
Because according to what Iread, they're sitting there just
sitting around in the parlor oneevening, it's Cain and Maggie.
And I think her sister, Kate,maybe Leah was there and maybe
another couple of other people.
And he's just like, let's getmarried right now.
You know, we don't need to havean actual legal ceremony.

(33:47):
You all are witnesses.
And if we profess our love infront of you, we will be
married.
So that's what they did.
And ever after that, married,not married.
Maggie considered herselfmarried and

Speaker 3 (33:58):
Themselves as married.
Yeah.
He's a total micro pain.
What a.

Speaker 1 (34:03):
Cause he didn't have the guts to stand up to his
family probably cause he wouldhave lost money, right?
Maybe Ben disinherited orsomething like that and making
him even more of a.
So almost immediately afterthey're married, he leaves again
for England.
But while he's there, he getsreally, really sick.
And he writes Maggie that he'sgoing to Havana Cuba to try to
get better, but she gets thismessage that he died.

(34:25):
And I think it was some, someweeks after he had died.
So he died in February of 1857and 37 years old and Maggie for
her, even though he was a micropain, as he said, he remained
the love of her life.
The other thing he, he didn'tlike, like he not only wanted
her to stop working, but hedidn't want her to believe in
spiritualism anymore.

(34:45):
And in fact, he wanted her toconvert to Catholicism, which
she did.
But get this, he wasn'tCatholic.
He was Protestant.
I'm not sure.
I think maybe Presbyterian.
I wonder why Catholicism?
Well, what high read said thathe thought that that would, that
religion would be a good matchfor her because it had all of
these rituals and things thatlike, maybe that would, that
would kind of stand in for thespiritualist stuff she was

(35:06):
missing when she gave it up.
So she did become Catholic, butshe's so, she's so sad.
A grief stricken after he diesthat she starts drinking and in
her alcoholism, I mean, she, shereally does become alcoholic.
Like she, she just drinks anddrinks.
So poor Maggie, but Kate, hersister, remember her younger
sister she's continuing to work,but a few years later, um, the
girl's parents die.

(35:26):
They've died really, not toolong.
I forget which one died first,but it wasn't long until the,
you know, the other one followedand this really hit Kate very
hard.
So like Maggie, she takes todrink and she's drinking all the
time and something I read inthis book by Weisberg, she talks
about the fact that mediumsapparently are very prone to
addiction and the theories thatthe substance has helped them

(35:48):
block out the constantstimulation from the spirit
world.
And I have read that otherplaces as well.

Speaker 3 (35:54):
And the author of this book.
What's her name again?
Her name is Barbara Weisberg.
So Wiseberg is she likeproponent of spiritualism or
she's,

Speaker 1 (36:03):
I'm not, I don't think she's a proponent.
I think she found itinteresting.
I think she has questions andI'll talk about that at the end.
She has an open mind, but Ithink she just really wanted to,
she was just fascinated bythese, by these girls' lives.
I read that she also writes forsome TV series.
So Kate, Kate's not doing verywell, but then like Maggie, she

(36:23):
has her love of, so she falls inlove with this guy named Henry
Dietrich genkan and he doesn'tseem like he's a b ag.
Like I'm like Elijah Kent K ane.
P lus they actually get marriedin the normal way and they have
two, two boys.
U m, and they live abroad for along time.
I think they lived in England.
It was really sad.
He died 10 years later.

(36:43):
So he didn't, you know, theywere only together a decade and
following his death, even thoughshe had her two boys, Kate just
couldn't keep it together.
And she started drinking again.
Meanwhile, Maggie had justrejected spiritualism and she,
because she felt that's what,what her dead husband wanted her
to do.
And she revealed a lot ofbitterness towards Leah, her
older sister and her mother.
And there was an article thatappeared in a paper at that

(37:05):
time.
And this is what she said whenspiritualism first began, Katie
and I were little children andthis old woman, my other sister
made us her tools.
Mother was a silly woman.
She was a fanatic.
What did we know?
Our sister used us in herexhibitions and we made money
for her.
So I mean, she's pretty, prettyharsh on everybody there.
I love when she calls an old,old woman, I know little

Speaker 3 (37:28):
Shade, I don't play where.
So Kate

Speaker 1 (37:31):
Is at this time, she's also denouncing
spiritualism.
And she says it was a humbugfrom beginning to end.
So on October 21st, 1888, Maggieaccepts this gig at New York
city's Academy of music.
And she's paid, I think about$1,200 for it.
I'm not sure that the people whopaid her knew what was going to
happen, but what did happen isshe gets up on stage and she

(37:53):
makes this big confession that,that basically she and Kate were
making it up the whole time.
So she, she explains how theymade the wraps.
And she says that they usedbasically their leg joints from
the knee down.
So I guess that would be liketheir knees and their ankles.
And especially they would usetheir big toe and they can
cheat.
It demonstrated this onstage.
Apparently she took off hershoes and she had her stocking

(38:15):
leg up and was showing peoplehow she could manipulate her
toes in different ways to makethese sounds.
And sometimes if she did it oneway, it would sound like it was
coming from the back of thetheater.
And other times it would soundlike it was like right next to
the person in the front row.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:28):
I'm just thinking like what the toll would be on
your body doing that.
So many times they

Speaker 1 (38:33):
Must've had some hell of a arthritis at that point.
Um, and she explained that whenthey were kids.
So when they, when this wholething started and that little
cottage, they were living inwith their parents, they had
tied an Apple to a string andthey dropped it at like
different places around thefloor, in the dark.
And that's how they made thewraps.
I guess they use the Apple andthen they figured out they could
make noises with their toes.

Speaker 3 (38:53):
And then they were probably laughing their off the
whole time.
And then their lives are ruined.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
Exactly.
Which it that's one of thereally interesting things about
the story,

Speaker 3 (39:05):
Uh, a little prank like that and basically lying.
And it destroys your life thingsthat kids do.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
I know.
And it's so strange.
I think that everybody took itso seriously.
I mean, Maggie does say in thatone quote that her mother was a
silly woman.
She was a fanatic.
I think she was really eager tobelieve whatever and what I've
read about their dad as he wasvery hands-off apparently he
struggled with alcoholism earlyon and then he became very
religious, but he was just not,you know, not really involved

Speaker 3 (39:32):
Restore.
You told me that you told whenyou were a child.
Oh my God.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
Don't make me tell this story.
Oh, so yeah, when I was insecond grade, so I guess that,
that would make, I did a lot ofweird in second grade.
Actually.
I c ould tell you a lot ofstories, but I wonder what was
going on with me when I l ookedback.
So I was like seven and one daywe were in class, you know,
reading our textbook orwhatever.
And I just k ind o f realizedthat if I just s ort o f like,

(39:56):
if I looked at the page in acertain way and sort of r elax
my e ye muscles, that I couldn'tsee very well, t hat everything
was b lur.
And so I convinced myself t hatI couldn't see.
And even though like, if I, if Idid my eyes the right way, I
could see again, I was like,what if I don't do it that way?
I just can't see.
So I started not being able tosee things on the board.

(40:16):
And then I would tell theteacher that I couldn't read the
book.
And so she'd have to get anotherstudent to like read out loud.
A nd t hen one time, I mean, Ithink this i s within the space
of a week.
I acted like I couldn't see myway to the bathroom, which was
actually inside the classroom.
That's the only naturalprogression.

(40:37):
So you didn't

Speaker 3 (40:38):
Even have to go down the hall.
It was in, it was in the

Speaker 1 (40:40):
Classroom.
It was like, that's

Speaker 3 (40:42):
Even worse.
I needed my little, you know, mylittle

Speaker 1 (40:45):
Walking stick, but I didn't have one.
So I guess the teacher called mymom and said, you know, I'm
really worried about Jenniferlike sheets.
She's not able to see and it'shappened very quickly.
So my mom took me to the eyedoctor and um, I just remember
thinking, Oh God, I hope he, Ikind of remember thinking two
things.
I wonder if something really badis wrong with me.

(41:05):
Cause I think part of me reallydid think that maybe I was going
blind, but the other part of mewas like, I hope he doesn't
figure out I'm faking.
So somehow I sorta knew I wasfaking and also believed I was
going blind.

Speaker 3 (41:17):
I think your mom took you to the wrong type of doctor.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
I think she did.
I think, I think you're right.
Um, but anyway, so the doctor islike, well, I need to have, you
know, uh, talk alone with yourmom.
And I'm like, Oh, this is notgood.
You know, seven year old me islike, I'm in trouble now.
But he,

Speaker 3 (41:34):
So he does,

Speaker 1 (41:35):
Mom is just like get in the car.
And she doesn't say anything tome the whole way home.
There's nothing like we're goingto get glasses for you or
anything like that.
So I, I just decided when I wentback to school the next day, I
would just be able to see itagain.
And so I did.
And that's nobody ever asked meany questions about it that I
remember.
I mean, they probably did, but Idon't remember it.

(41:55):
And my teacher thought she musthave thought I was psycho.
She must've thought there waslike crazy stuff going on at
home.
But my mom never said anythingabout it till I was about 13.
And I was having like backachesor this pain in my back.
And my mom was like, I'm nottaking you to another doctor
just to find out that there'snothing wrong.
I just had to deal with mybackaches taking that time seven

Speaker 3 (42:16):
Years later.
And she's still holding itagainst you,

Speaker 1 (42:19):
You know, I'm, you know, I'm almost too embarrassed
to bring it up with her.
I want to ask her about it, butI'm, I'm too embarrassed.
Oh, you have

Speaker 3 (42:26):
To.
And they're like,

Speaker 1 (42:27):
When we go to West Virginia sometime to see her,
maybe we can, I just feel like Ineed somebody else there.
I can't

Speaker 3 (42:32):
Kind of ease into it.
I have to give your mom creditbecause she didn't say anything
for seven years.
So, or six or seven years.
I wouldn't have been able to siton that.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
Would you have been if your kid did t hat?

Speaker 3 (42:45):
I think I would have been worried about her
psychological.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
Well, I know when I think about it, I does make me
think like what was wrong withme?
I mean, I think I knew I wantedto wear glasses and I'm cursed
because now I have to wearglasses because I really truly
am blind as a bat now.
So I have to wear glasses, butthen I really wanted them.
And I think, I mean, they alwayswant, I mean, obviously I was
wanting attention.
Wasn't all kids want attention,but I think your mom,

Speaker 3 (43:10):
Other than saying that she didn't want to take you
to a doctor when something wasreally wrong.
But I think your mom handled itwell, not to handle it.
Well, not to say anything.
I think my mom would havespanked me.

Speaker 1 (43:21):
You would've had a whole different health problem.

Speaker 3 (43:24):
She wouldn't shoot her, grabbed me by my kid in the
car.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
She would have dislocated your elbow.
Is she like throws you in thecar?
Oh my God.
So do you have any stories likethat?

Speaker 3 (43:34):
Not as like a child that I can remember off hand,
but as a teenager, I, my mom, Idon't know.
I felt like at the time thatmaybe she suspected that I was
gay.
And even though, because I datedquite a few boys and then I
stopped all of a sudden and Inever knew that you dated a lot
of guys.
I don't know.
Maybe it wasn't a lot, but itwas, it was more than a few.

(43:55):
And, and she, yeah, the lesbian,it gets all the unwanted action.
So she, I was afraid that shesuspected cause all of a sudden
I just kind of stopped or to mein my mind, that's kind of how
it was.
And I was just really paranoidabout her finding out.
And there was one particularperson in the friend group that,
well, we were seeing each other,but my mom, I think could tell,

(44:16):
I felt like she could pick upthe vibe that maybe there was
something more than justfriendship.
So we wanted to of course, youknow, stay the night together
one night and I lied to my momand I told her I was with my
friend.
My friend is, I think I told herit was with my friend, Lisa and
for whatever reason, the nextday I came home really early.
And you have to remember, thisis prior to pre-cellphone days.

(44:38):
And I think I came home atsomething like seven 30 in the
morning.
Oh, you cut that night short.
Yeah.
I just, I just felt somethingwas wrong.
And when I walk in my mom's onthe couch, she's been crying,
she's upset.
She confronts me.
And um, I've been out all night,you know, driving around and
it's like, I don't know whereshe thought that she was going
to find me, but so she's, youknow, crying and going into all

(45:02):
these histrionics about who wasI with and you know, was I on
birth control?
And um, and so of course I playalong.
Like I didn't want her to findout it was gay and not that she,
she probably, it was just in mymind that I thought maybe she
would know, but I just wentahead and played along with it.
And I was like, well, I was withMark and um, you know, so she

(45:23):
was like, Oh, you're going toget pregnant.
You know, that type of thing.
Well, she just assumed that shejust assumed the worst.

Speaker 1 (45:32):
So he was a loose woman, Jen,

Speaker 3 (45:34):
That's a really good point.
Yeah.
So I guess she just assumed theworst and

Speaker 1 (45:39):
That's what she did when she was young.
You know, people believe whatother people, what they were,
what they did.

Speaker 3 (45:44):
Well, my mom's, um, my mom's first boyfriend, he was
gay.
So my mom, yeah.
I don't think my mom engaged inanything.
Your mom or the store.
Yeah.
So it was, it was much morepalatable for me to be out
freaking this guy at all hoursof the night and potentially
getting pregnant than to saythat I was with my girlfriend.
Yeah.
So that's, that's the only thingI can think of offhand.

(46:06):
It wasn't, um, it's not nearlyas fun as yours.

Speaker 1 (46:11):
No, but it's a good story, but it makes me kind of
sad cause it just makes, I don'tknow.
I just think it was so hardgrowing up and

Speaker 3 (46:17):
It's ridiculous.
And when you think back onthings like that, I mean, just
thinking about it makes me souncomfortable.
I don't know with you justtelling your story to

Speaker 1 (46:25):
Be very uncomfortable because I think what a little
freak

Speaker 3 (46:28):
I was, well, it's still, for me, it's like still
super embarrassing and

Speaker 1 (46:33):
Yeah.
So with your story, I don't seethat you had anything to be
embarrassed about kind of likeall these assumptions on your
mom's part.
But, but I, you know, I think weall have these deceptions, you
know, that when we're young thatwe don't know how to handle or
we don't know how to handlecertain things in our lives and
maybe desires or wishes or justsituations.
And we do, we come up with thesedeceptions and like you said,

(46:54):
probably Maggie and Kate werelaughing their asses off.
When they first figured out theycould crack their toes and you
know, make their parents believeall this crazy stuff, but then
it just goes wrong for them.
And it's like their whole

Speaker 3 (47:05):
Life.
This is so funny.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
And then you're like, yeah, it's funny, girl, this is
gonna go down a bad road.
So after Maggie confessed, thiswas a huge deal.
And it was, the press said thather confession was the death
blow to spiritualism.
Um, in fact that turned out notto be true.
Spiritualism continued tothrive, although Maggie and Kate
were not involved, but just ayear later after confessing,

(47:28):
Maggie were her confession.
And she says that when herrecantation is that she did it
at the behest of her spiritguides, they told her, take back
what you said, you know, itwasn't true.
So she did that, but I thinkit's probably more accurate to
think that the poor, the poorwoman needed some money.
I mean, she needed to work againand nobody was going to go to
her as a medium, well about hersister.

(47:48):
So she, so she dies she's shemakes it into her seventies.
She dies in 1890.
Um, but she was very beloved inspiritualist circles and was
kind of seen as like the motherof spiritualism.
In some ways, even though she,she was not known to have the
same gifts, is this and Maggieor so following her death, um,
just two years later, 1892, Katedies.

(48:10):
She's the younger one.
Um, she dies after a drinkingspree and then Maggie dies in
1893 and both women were just intheir fifties.
So for me, the mystery thatpersists is what exactly Kate
and Maggie believed about theirgifts.
And how did the understandingchange over the years?
Um, you know, I think we we'vetalked about this by talking
about our stories.
There's probably some cognitivedissonance there like you like,

(48:31):
cause I really think when I wasin second grade, like during
that one week I kind of didthink I was going blind even
while I knew I was faking it.
Like there was, there was likeboth were happening in my weird
little brain, you know?
So it makes you wonder what theyreally thought.
You know, if you're doing, ifyou do something as a trick, but
then people start to believeyou, maybe it takes on this
reality for you.
So at its peak spiritualism wasso popular.

(48:54):
I mean, by the 1880s, there werean estimated 8 million
spiritualists in the UnitedStates in Europe and people w
you know, when I tell you someof the people who were into it,
it's going to surprise you.
Like Thomas Edison was into it.
He was working on somethingcalled a spirit phone that he
thought could make contactbetween us and the spirit realm,
which I wish that existed.
Would that be amazing if youcould just call?

(49:15):
Like, I mean, there's so manypeople I would call, I feel like
most of my family is on theother side of this point, but
Charles Dickens, he was part ofthis thing called a ghost club
in London, I think in the 1860s.
And there was some spiritualiststuff there.
And then Arthur Conan Doyle whowrote the Sherlock Holmes books.
Um, he was an in, um, an ardentspiritualist and his, his son

(49:36):
Kelsey died in world war II,world war II.
And so I think he believed thathe contacted Kelsey through a
medium.
And then the other one thatsurprised me I read about was
Upton Sinclair, you know, the,the muckraker journalist, but
yeah, so he and his wife were,were very much into spiritualism
too.
So it was, was really popular.
So the same year that Maggiedies 1893, the natural, the
national spiritualistassociation was formed.

(49:58):
And today it's known as thenational spiritualist
association of churches.
And it's, it's really whatremains of the spiritualist
movement.
It's still in existence today.
It is actually one of thebiggest communities of
spiritualists is, is still inNew York, in Western New York.
Believe it or not, it's in thislittle town called Lilydale.
And, um, it's about 60 milesSouth of Buffalo off of

(50:19):
interstate I 90.
And it kills me because when welived in Rochester, New York, we
were there for four years and weused to go, we take[inaudible]
to go to West Virginia to see myfamily.
So I must've driven past theturn off for it, like a million
times, not a million, but abunch of times, but I never knew
about it.

Speaker 3 (50:35):
Yeah.
I was going to say, obviouslyyou didn't know about it cause I
know you would have, Oh, I wouldhave just been there.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
In fact, I want us to go there.
I think it would be a really,really cool trip, but anyway, so
they have a museum there andthen a lot of mediums live
there.
And during July and August,people really flocked to the
town, the whole it's a littleplace, but it comes alive and
people go there for readings andthey have all these different
classes and like, Oh, these justall these like hippy dippy, you
know, kinds of things that theydo very new age, very female

(51:02):
centered community.
But in their museum, they have apeddlers trunk, which is
supposed to be the trunk, thebelong to the peddler who
remember at the beginning of thestory that the girl's mother,
you know, interviews the spirit.
And it was a peddler who waskilled and buried in the
basement.
So they have his trunk.
What's supposed to be his trunkand their museum and the

(51:22):
Hyattsville cottage where thegirls, you know, first where the
family first heard the raps, itwas actually moved to Lily Dale
in 1916.
But unfortunately it did burndown in 1955.
But yeah, you can go to Lilydaletoday to meet with a medium, um,
right now during COVID you canalso do a remotely.
I was actually thinking ofbooking a session, which I still
might do.
I'm a little nervous about it.

(51:43):
And I'm kind of, part of mynervousness is like, am I
wasting my money?
But I'm also free.
So it's just interesting, um,how it does remain today.
And there's one last postscriptI want to tell you.
So in 1904, which is what seven,about 11 years after, after the
last sister dies, um, there arethese kids in Heightsville and
they're playing in the old housethat the sisters, you know,

(52:05):
heard all this stuff or all thisstuff happened in and locally,
it was known as the spook house,but they're playing around and
they discover a skeleton.
So you wonder it was at the, wasit the bones or the murdered
peddler?
Like what was, why was thatthere?
How long after did they find it?
Um, they found it, so Maggiedied in 1893, Kate in 1892.

(52:26):
And they found it in 1904 inthat wild and it really
explained yeah.
Then it makes

Speaker 3 (52:30):
You kind of go back to, well, it was a really
something to it.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
I know.
So I think who knows, I mean, I,I don't disbelieve in
spiritualism.
I don't know that Maggie andKate were the real things, but I
think that there's the potentialfor it to be real.
I don't disbelieve in it

Speaker 3 (52:46):
Either.
I just find, I think, you know,looking at this case or
whatever, it's highly suspiciousin for me, it's only because
it's not even necessarily theone of the sisters recanting for
whatever reason, I'm moresuspicious because the older
sister was just propelling.
This was a catalyst and clearlyusing this for her own gain.

Speaker 1 (53:07):
Oh, I think you're totally right about that.
Yeah.
It just seemed like it was, itwas really a way of making money
and really gathering power forher.
So, you know, and I'm sure thereare some, some bad mediums out
there who are in it for all thewrong reasons and they're
exploiting people.
But I like to think that there'ssome good ones too, that maybe
they really do have a gift, butthat's the story for tonight?
Well, that was a great story.

(53:28):
Thank you.
These things are endless.
They are, and they can take youdown so many rabbit holes when I
was putting this together, I wasreally having a hard time
because there were so many, somany little side roads.
You could go down interestingthings, but that's, what's so
fun about history, you know,especially paranormal history.
There's just so much there somuch inner connectedness.
Exactly.

(53:49):
Yeah.
And, and, you know, I like whensupernatural history is actually
connected to the larger historyof like, what's going on, you
can just see like all theseelements coming together.
And, and I think spiritualism isuniquely American in a lot of
ways.
And I thought that that wasreally cool.
So have you finished yourhurricane on?
Go ahead.
Just about, just about, howabout you, have you finished

(54:09):
your, I have maybe like aquarter of it left and what are
you having?
I'm having my, um, black widowsmash, your black one.
Okay.
That's right.
And we should toast and Maggieand Kate.
Cause I feel like they got abad, a bad rap.
I didn't, I didn't mean to makea pun, but I just made a pun.

Speaker 2 (54:26):
They had kind of a life.
H e did.
So t o, to Maggie and Kate.
Yes.
I'll drink to that.
I'll drink to that.
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(54:55):
[ inaudible].