The Fox Sisters
Brave Pioneers of Spiritualism

Question 1: How did spirit people first get in touch with us ordinary people?

Question 2: How was this 'new religion' born? 

It was due to the events which made the family name of Fox historic, date from 11 December, 1847, the day on which John D Fox, together with his wife Margaret and their three children, Catherine (Kate), Margaretta and Leah, became the tenants of a house in Hydesville, a hamlet near Rochester in New York State in the United States of America.

The family were reasonably comfortable in their new accommodation until March 1848. Raps, knocks and noises as though furniture was being shifted about began to be heard at night.

They gradually increased in intensity and, on 31 March, there was a very loud and continuous outbreak of inexplicable sounds. At his wife’s suggestion that the window sashes might have rattled as the night was windy, John Fox shook them to see whether they were in fact loose. Catherine pointed out that as her father had shaken the window sash, the noises seem to echo a reply.....

Kate was inspired to ask for a response to the snapping of her fingers. By this means, their first communication with the world of spirit was established, and so began the way of life, the philosophy and science on which the religion of Spiritualism is founded.

A testimony was signed four days after these momentous occurrences. It reads:

“On the night of the first disturbance we all got up, lighted a candle and searched the entire house, the noises continuing during the time and being heard near the same place. Although not very loud, it produced a jar of the bedsteads and chairs that could be felt when we were in bed. It was a tremulous motion, more than a sudden jar. We could feel it when standing on the floor. It continued on this night until we slept.

On March 30 we were disturbed all night. The noises were heard in all parts of the house. My husband stationed himself outside the door while I stood inside, and the knocks came on the door between us. We heard footsteps in the pantry, and walking downstairs: we could not rest, and I then concluded that the house must be haunted by some unhappy, restless spirit. I had often heard of such things.

On Friday night, March 31, 1848, we concluded to go to bed early and not permit ourselves to be disturbed by the noises, but try and get a night’s rest … It was very early when we went to bed on this night – hardly dark. I had been so broken of my rest I was almost sick. My husband had not gone to bed when we first heard the noise on this evening.

I had just lain down. It commenced as usual. I knew it from all the other noises I had ever heard before. The children, who slept in the other bed in the room heard the rapping and tried to make similar sounds by snapping their fingers.

My youngest child, Cathie, said: “Mr Splitfoot, do as I do," clapping her hands. The sound instantly followed her with the same number of raps. When she stopped the sound ceased for a short time. Then Margaretta said, in sport, “No, do just as I do. Count one, two, three, four," striking one hand against the other at the same time; and the raps came as before. She was afraid to repeat them.

I then thought I could put a test that no one in the place could answer. I asked the noise to rap my different children’s ages, successively. Instantly each one of their ages was given correctly, pausing between them sufficiently long to individualize them until the seventh, at which a longer pause was made, and then three more emphatic raps were given, corresponding to the age of the little one that died which was my youngest child.

I then asked: “Is this a human being that answers my questions so correctly?" There was no rap. I asked “Is this a spirit? If it is make two raps." Two sounds were given as soon as the request was made. I then said: “If it was an injured spirit, make two raps," which were instantly made causing the house to tremble. I asked: “Were you injured in this house?" The answer was given as before. “Is the person living that injured you?" Answered by raps in the same manner.

I ascertained by the same simple method that it was a man, aged 31 years, that he had been murdered in this house; that his family consisted of a wife and five children … all living at the time of his death, but that the wife had since died. I asked: “Will you continue to rap if I call my neighbors that they may hear it too?" The raps were loud in the affirmative.

Many were called in … and all heard the same questions and answers. Many remained in the house all night. On the next Saturday the house was filled to overflowing.

There were no sounds heard during the day, but they commenced again in the evening. It was said that there was over three hundred present at the time. Sunday the noises were heard throughout the day.

I certify that the foregoing statement has been read to me and that the same is true; and that I should be willing to take my oath that it is so if necessary."

It was signed Margaret Fox.

A New Religion is born 

Thus a new religion was born in the New World . A National Association of Spiritualists was formed in 1864, which then evolved into the National Spiritualist Association that convened in Chicago in September of 1893 in order to place the proof of life after death into a religious context. The religion of Spiritualism was brought to England by Mrs. Hayden in 1852. In 1855 the first Spiritualist newspaper, The Spiritual Telegraph, was published by David Richmond in Keighley, Yorkshire, and the Spiritual Times produced by Robert Cooper in London was in circulation soon after. In 1866 the crusading Spiritualist medium, orator, author and journalist, Emma Hardinge-Britten, returned to the land of her birth from the United States of America where she had campaigned tirelessly for the abolition of slavery, the Presidency of Abraham Lincoln, and Spiritualism. The rest, as they say, is history.