The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

VI. Strange Life and Tragic End of Fox Sisters

We close this chapter an a somber note, but one that must be considered. Despite charges of fraud and trickery, the Fox sisters were looked upon as the most highly gifted of the early mediumistic fraternity. But it is incumbent upon us to look a little more closely into the lives and public declarations of the three Fox sisters-Leah, Margaretta, and Katie. Leah (afterward Mrs. Underhill) was the oldest of the three. Katie, the youngest, continued uninterruptedly in her mediumship for some thirty years. On the contrary, Margaretta (afterward Mrs. Kane) gave no sittings from about 1856 to 1867. ³⁸ CFF2 1087.1

1. MARGARETTA’S OSCILLATING CAREER AS SPIRITUALIST

Margaretta had married Dr. Elisha Kane, an Arctic explorer. But after his death she turned away from Spiritualism for a time, and in August, 1858, joined the Roman Catholic Church. ³⁹ However, she continued to associate occasionally with the Spiritualists. And, “pressed by the spirits,” after a while she stood again before the world with undiminished powers as a spirit medium. ⁴⁰ English Spiritualist James Burns, editor of The Medium, after Margaretta’s tragic death in 1893, referred to a CFF2 1087.2

“twofold spiritual spectacle; we have a woman giving spiritual manifestations to others, while within herself she is spiritually lost and misdirected. All moral sense, and control of mind and desire were gone.... But when the medium makes a trade of it and puffs the thing up as a commodity for sale, then farewell to all that might elevate or instruct in the subject.” ⁴¹ CFF2 1087.3

2. WARNING ADMONITION FROM DR. KANE TO MARGARETTA

One of the early warnings against the degrading influence of the Spiritistic phenomena of the Fox sisters was penned by none other than Dr. Kane, Arctic explorer husband of Margaretta, in his intimate letters to her, inspired by his love and concern for her. After his death Margaretta published these letters in The Love-Li f e of Dr. Kane-a book now exceedingly rare. In these missives these pertinent appeals and admonitions from the doctor appear: CFF2 1087.4

“‘Oh, Maggie, are you never tired of this weary, weary sameness of continual deceit? Are you doomed thus to spend your days, doomed never to rise to better things?’” CFF2 1088.1

“‘Do avoid “spirits.” I cannot bear to think of you as engaged in a course of wickedness and deception. Maggie, you have no friend but me whose interest in you is disconnected from this cursed rapping. Pardon my saying so; but is it not deceit even to listen when others are deceived?’” ⁴² CFF2 1088.2

3. MARGARETTA PURPOSES TO EXPOSE SPIRITUALISM IN 1888

In 1888 something sensational happened. For weeks there had been rumors of a forthcoming exposure of the frauds of Spiritualism. When Margaretta Fox Kane returned to New York from Europe she indicated to an interviewer her intention of exposing the whole Spiritistic fabrication. She had had a bitter quarrel with her older sister, Leah, who had shortly before published a book entitled The Missing Link in Modern Spiritualism (1885). This purported to be a history of the early manifestations at Hydesville and Rochester, in which the three sisters were at first concerned. CFF2 1088.3

Margaretta had by this time come to despise Spiritualism, and had decided to denounce it. Her intense feelings were expressed in the New York Herald of September 24, 1888. There she declared that she was going to lay bare the very foundations of Spiritualism. For some years she had contemplated this action, and had now come to “loathe” Spiritualism and all it stood for. She had said to those urging her to conduct séances, “You are driving me to hell.” She had also sought to drown her troubles in drink, but to no avail. She remained bitter toward Leah, who, she said, made her and Katie “tools” so as to make money for her. CFF2 1088.4

4. JOINED BY KATIE IN DRAMATIC EXPOSURE

About the same time Katie (Mrs. Jencken) also returned from Europe. She too told a reporter that she would take part in the exposure. Here are Katie’s words: CFF2 1088.5

“‘I regard Spiritualism as one of the greatest curses that the world has ever known.... The worst of them all (the Spiritualists) is my eldest sister Leah, the wife of Daniel Underhill.... I don’t know why it is, she has always been jealous of Maggie and me; I suppose because we could do things in Spiritualism that she couldn’t.’” ⁴³ CFF2 1089.1

On October 21, in a large assembly in the New York Academy of Music, after a Dr. Richmond had, by sleight of hand, successfully imitated the date writing and thought reading of the séance room, Margaretta Fox Kane arose and, in her sister’s presence, read a statement repudiating their whole supernormal phenomena. In this she Said: CFF2 1089.2

“‘That I have been chiefly instrumental in perpetrating the fraud of Spiritualism upon a too-confiding public, most of you doubtless know. CFF2 1089.3

‘The greatest sorrow in my life has been that this is true, and though it has come late in my day, I am now prepared to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God!... CFF2 1089.4

“‘I am here tonight as one of the founders of Spiritualism to denounce it as an absolute falsehood from beginning to end, as the flimsiest of superstitions, the most wicked blasphemy known to the world.’” ⁴⁴ CFF2 1089.5

The New York Herald reported:
“By throwing life and enthusiasm into her big toe Mrs. Margaret Fox Kane produced loud Spirit-rapping in the Academy of Music last night and dealt a deathblow to Spiritualism, that huge and world-wide fraud which she and her sister Katie founded in 1848. Both sisters were present and both denounced Spiritualism as a monstrous imposition and a cheat. CFF2 1089.6

“The great building was crowded and the wildest excitement prevailed at times. Hundreds of spiritualists had come to see the originators of their faith destroy it at one stroke. They were greatly agitated at times and hissed fiercely. Take it all in all, it was a most remarkable and dramatic spectacle.” ⁴⁵ CFF2 1089.7

5. RECANTS FORMER DENUNCIATION IN 1889

Notwithstanding all this, a year later, in the home of Henry J. Newton, prominent New York Spiritualist, Margaretta made a formal recantation of her previous denunciation, declaring that it had no foundation in fact, and asserted, “‘Those charges were false in every particular.’” ⁴⁶ Katie likewise, in a way, repudiated her share in the “exposure” by a letter to the Spiritualist journal Light. CFF2 1089.8

6. BOTH SISTERS DIE AS ALCOHOLICS

But there was a tragic finale. Dark shadows marked the closing years of both Fox sisters. Katie (Mrs. Jencken) died of alcoholic excesses in June, 1892. And Margaretta (Mrs. Kane), last survivor of the sisters, had a pitiable and tragic end in March, 1893. She too died a confirmed inebriate. Here is the dismal record: CFF2 1090.1

“The tenement house of No. 456 West 57th Street, New York, is deserted now, except one room, from cellar to roof. The room is occupied by a woman nearly 60 years of age, an object of charity, a mental and physical wreck, whose appetite is only for intoxicating liquors. The face, though marked by age and dissipation, shows unmistakably that the woman was once beautiful. CFF2 1090.2

“This wreck of womankind has been a guest in palaces and courts. The powers of mind, now almost imbecile, were the wonder and study of scientific men in America, Europe, and Australia. Her name was eulogized, sung, and ridiculed in a dozen languages. The lies that utter little else now than profanity once promulgated the doctrine of a new religion which still numbers its tens of thousands of enthusiastic believers.” ⁴⁷ CFF2 1090.3

The moral degradation of Spiritualists Margaretta and Katie Fox stand an record for all time. CFF2 1090.4

Thus there was confession of fraud, followed by retraction within a year. What is the explanation? Spiritualism was riddled with imposture. But it was not all trickery. It was not all fraud. There were genuine manifestations of actual “spirit” contacts that could not be gainsaid. But of what “spirits”? That is the crucial question. And that will be examined later. CFF2 1090.5

7. NOT TROUBLED OVER “RESPECTABILITY OF ORIGINS.”

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in his History of Spiritualism (1926), sought to “palliate the stigma” that the tainted careers of Margaretta and Katie had placed upon Spiritualism. He did not believe their statements. His theory was that “Maggie’s raps” were caused by the protrusion, from some part of her person, of a long rod of “ectoplasm,” a substance invisible to the eye but capable of so conducting energy as to make sounds and strike blows at a distance. But neither Conan Doyle nor Oliver Lodge, scholars that they were, troubled themselves about the “respectability of origins.” Doyle did, however, say that “‘the entities with which the Fox circle were at first in contact were not of the highest order.’” ⁴⁸ But “to this day the Fox sisters are spoken of by ardent Spiritualists in the highest terms and are regarded by them as endowed with a special mission to humanity.” ⁴⁹ CFF2 1090.6

Henry J. Newton, president of The First Spiritual Society of New York, said: CFF2 1091.1

“‘Nothing that she [Margaretta] could say in that regard would in the least change my opinion, nor would it that of anyone else who had become profoundly convinced that there is an occult influence connecting us with an invisible world.’” ⁵⁰ CFF2 1091.2