WEBVTT - The Truth is Out There: The Fox Sisters 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:03.400 Ridiculous crime is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:03.680 --> 0:00:04.480 Sarah Burnett. 0:00:04.800 --> 0:00:08.280 You can't prove that, Elizabeth, Elizabeth back again? Are you doing? 0:00:08.360 --> 0:00:09.600 I'm good? How are you? 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:11.200 You know I've been good. I've been fair to Midland. 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:12.320 How about you? You look nice? 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:13.520 Thank you, thank you? 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:14.880 I like that. What is that? A turtle on your 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:15.520 wear on your head? 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:18.239 It's nice turtle turtle underwear on my head. 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:20.880 Yeah, it's good. Yep, good. Look you know that's ridiculous. 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:24.400 I do sperm whales. Okay, No, no, like Elizabeth, I 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:26.520 don't mean. It's more to it than just the words 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:30.720 sperm whale. It's the sound, not of the words sperm whale. 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:31.960 It's the sound of the whales. 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:32.680 Yeah. 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:35.239 Like, Okay, if you were underwater, like thirty or say 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:37.519 thirty feet underwater right in the ocean, you could hear 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:41.120 sperm whales singing and it would sound like they were screaming. 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:44.440 Really yeah, because apparently, hands down, the sperm whale is 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:47.320 the loudest animal on Earth. Like I was looking into it. 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:50.200 A sperm whale sings at two hundred and thirty decibels. 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:53.160 What yeah, now, for comparison's sake, an ambulance. Sorry, Okay, 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:56.520 jackhammer that's like one hundred and thirty decibels. Fireworks gunshots 0:00:56.560 --> 0:00:59.240 that's like one hundred and forty decibels. A jet screaming 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:01.560 as it takes off, tearing the air, it's one hundred 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:05.040 and fifty decibels. Meanwhile, there's sperm whale screaming death metal 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:07.240 into the ocean at two hundred and thirty decibels. 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:07.840 It's thirty. 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:09.959 Yeah, did don't you know? Everyonder? Like the other whales 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:11.960 and dolphins are like, damn son, I'm swimming right here, 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:13.560 right here, man, come on, now. 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:17.600 They have voice I modulation, they have that rare condition. 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:20.399 I am a sperm whale. There's something I could know 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:24.479 about this. That's horrible, crazy, Like why do they need 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:27.399 to be so loud? Oh? All the heather whales are like, man, come, 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:29.600 let's go to the tropics, man. Sperm whales just got here. 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:32.720 That's ridiculous, right, that is very ridiculous. Do you know 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:33.839 what else is ridiculous? 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:35.280 No, I'm here for it though. 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:59.280 Conning people by cracking your knuckles. Ooh, this is ridiculous. 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:03.120 Crime A pod cast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:06.240 and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:09.960 one hundred percent ridiculous. You damn right, I'm crazy, Zarin, 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:11.600 Crazy like a fox. 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:13.160 Oh that's why I can see your tail wagon. 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:16.399 Crazy like a fox, sister. What I'll explain myself later. 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:19.320 So first I want to take you on a little 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:20.440 trip down memory lane. 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:22.120 Oh, I love one of my favorite lanes. 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:24.760 Do you remember when we first started doing this show? 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:27.880 Okay, kind of, Yeah, totally, and you remember there? I 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:28.200 was there. 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:31.920 Yeah, you remember. We did did a bunch of episodes, yeah, totally. Yeah, 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:35.760 and we did one about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle aka 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:36.800 Conan the Barbarian. 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:39.240 Oh yeah, going hard against Udini and spiritualism. 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:40.840 Yeah, yeah, do you remember that? 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:42.280 Yeah, totally. I think I told it. 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:45.920 We were so young back then. Yes, any Who's Spiritualism 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:49.000 For those who haven't listened to the earlier episode or 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:52.880 those like me with broken brain memory issues, Spiritualism is 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:57.080 the nineteenth century movement that claimed that awareness exists even 0:02:57.080 --> 0:02:59.520 after death and that it's possible for there to be 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:01.160 contact between the living and the dead. 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:03.280 Yeah. It was like the eighteen hundreds version of I'm 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:05.400 a psychic. I can talk to the dead, but they 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:07.280 have like a whole different like language for it. M 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:10.280 and we basically get the spirit mediums is like the 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:11.920 crossover point. The clairvoyant is. 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:13.560 A crossover Sorry, I had to take a sip of 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:16.600 water there everybody anyway, Yes, and there are people who 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:18.760 believe this today in varying. 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:20.520 Degrees to varying degrees and invarying languages. 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:22.480 Yeah, but we see it in a bit of a 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:26.079 different light now today most people see seances as tricks 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:28.799 and cons. Yes, no offense to people who are into them. 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:31.480 When there's a crystal ball and smoke rock on. 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:34.880 If you're into that. But whatever, most people think seers 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:36.480 who can talk to the dead are full of it, 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:38.240 unless you're poll Walnuts. 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:39.840 Hey, I'm dragging souls over here. 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:44.000 That's that's the episode of The Sopranos where poll Walnuts 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:47.240 goes and visits a medium and is completely in a 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:49.400 packed room of people. He's killed. 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:55.600 It's amazing to talk through the medium. She's like, take 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:55.920 your time. 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:58.800 So you have like a made man killer. Yes, with 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:01.000 all these ghosts falling him around. 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:04.360 Everywhere he's going, he's got solid dragon soul. 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:08.600 But in the eighteen hundreds, spiritualism wasn't like a roadside 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:11.040 carneia attraction for Rubes. 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:12.920 Now the president's wife was into it. 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:15.960 Well, yeah, and Americans were quick to adopt it as 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:20.160 a way to reject Calvinist doctrine of predestination. It gave 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:23.080 them control over their own salvation, and they could communicate 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:26.200 directly with spirits who had already passed on, who could 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:28.200 kind of tell them how to Yeah, how are you 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:29.400 going to live your life? How are you going to 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:29.920 save your soul? 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:31.279 Health troubled moments. 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:33.760 Yeah, it was seen as a way to merge the 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:37.279 unknowable aspects of human existence with the technology that was 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:41.000 just progressing by leaps and bounds. So not technology like 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:44.600 we mean today. I'm talking like industrial automation and the tellergram. 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:45.080 Yeah. 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:47.080 I used to tell my students that the stapler was 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:49.640 once technology, and they just kept ignoring me. 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:51.400 Anyway, Do you ever tell him like the pencil us too, 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:52.720 and you get that far back it. 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:55.760 Really at one point. Yes, there was also at this 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:58.240 time fascination with the East and Orientalism. 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:00.400 Oh yes, when they were japanning every. 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:02.560 Yeah, and there was a sense of mystery applied to 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:05.320 the culture of East Asia that intoxicated people. 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:08.800 All they knew it just opened up. I mean after 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:11.280 the Civil War is basically you have Japan opening up 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:11.800 and then China. 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:13.800 Yeah, and all they knew of these places were the 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:17.520 caricatures that were pedaled to them by European tastemakers. So 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:20.080 a part of that vibe that they were sold was 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:23.479 that the mysteries of the East involved fortune tellers, mystics. 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:27.400 People were immigrating over oceans in numbers never seen before 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:31.080 thanks to transportation technology. Everything was new and changing and 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:36.479 exciting and scary powered. Yeah, don't you think that the 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:39.520 rise in astrology interest today has some connection to the 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:42.359 whiplash speed of technological advancement we're living in. 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:45.200 Yeah, all the unknowables make people yearn for the noble, 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:47.080 and then they go, I'll take this person who just 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:48.960 says I can tell you the fuge well. 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:51.560 And we're spinning out here on Earth while the heavens 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:53.680 stay the same and keep scores. Kind of what works 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:54.400 for people, I guess. 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:56.800 And also it's interpretive. It's kind of like the tarot, 0:05:56.880 --> 0:05:58.919 Like both astrology and the taro allow you to do 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:02.240 the interpretation. So yeah, you're subconscious just finding a way 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:04.120 to bubble up. So I think a lot of people 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:04.680 figured that out. 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:07.520 Yeah, yeah, who knows. And it wasn't just the technological 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:10.800 advancement of the time. There's also scientific discovery times. Yes, 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:13.440 so like germ theory was established at this time eighteen 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:17.800 thirty nine, mid eighteen eighteen fifty eighteen sixty, the periodic 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:22.040 table of elements was constructed. Oh, incredible things were done 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:23.120 with electricities eron. 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:26.320 Oh yes, my man Tesla. 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:26.680 Science was changing everything. 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:28.080 I gotta tell you a story about him sometimes. 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:32.839 Okay, I'm scared. Spiritualists saw themselves as a part of that, 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:35.320 as a part of this science that was changing the world. 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:38.160 They thought they were using science to prove the existence 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:41.040 of not only God, but the afterlife. Think about it. 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:44.560 For people learning about these new machines and concepts, none 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:46.320 of that made any more sense in being able to 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:47.039 talk to the dead. 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:50.160 Oh, if you suddenly have the gas powered lights, that's 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:52.360 a miracle. And then you get into electricity. Now you've 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:54.080 got things arcing and sparkan and you don't even know 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:54.680 what's going on. 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:57.279 So in the telegraph you can send these messages across 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:01.279 turn Yeah, so why not why not say, yeah, you know, 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:03.760 this cool new stuff is happening, why not throw in 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:04.679 spectral community. 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:06.000 Also, we can talk to the dead. 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:10.480 And so yeah, why not? Well, there are the true believers, 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:13.720 those willing and ready to take advantage of true believers, 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:19.000 you know, so enter con artists. They gain the confidence 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:21.680 of an audience hungry for a connection to the next world. 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:23.800 Who wouldn't want to talk to someone who's. 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:27.960 Past unless they're family? I'm kidding, but yes, so like, 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:29.160 who wouldn't. 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:30.800 Want to at least know that the person or in 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:32.920 my case dogs or dog. 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:35.200 Or dogs dogs, multiple dogs, all of the dogs. 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:38.600 Know, who wouldn't want to know that? You know, this 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:41.520 person that you loved is happy and can like watch 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:42.840 over you and stay with you. 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:44.960 Oh, if you could talk and send a message over 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.320 the Rainbow Bridge, I know you would be Yes. 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:50.600 And everyone's lost someone, you know, even if it's like 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:52.400 an ancestor that you never got to meet, and you 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:54.680 want to talk too. You know, I got great great 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:56.880 grandmas I never met. I'd love to talk to anyway. 0:07:57.320 --> 0:08:00.480 Our human hunger for that connection is what leaves us open. Yes, 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:02.960 when you're hungry, you'll eat almost. 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:04.320 Anything good point, Yeah, totally. 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:07.600 In the rise of spiritualism came con artists who thought 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:10.560 of really clever ways, sometimes using that new science and 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:14.400 technology to dupe people into believing that they were a 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:18.040 conduit to the afterlife, and they would connect you for 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:21.640 a price, always for a price. I got a few 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:23.120 of these jokers here for you today. 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:23.720 Nice. 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:25.440 Let me just say that I can get a little 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:28.560 wu wu. Oh yeah, I'm not casting judgment. I think 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:29.520 you can get Yeah, you can. 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:33.000 Get believes all the time ghosts. 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:36.480 So I got three sassy gals who swam in the 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:38.360 wu wu. The Fox sisters. 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:40.319 Okay, you promised the Fox I did. 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:46.320 Leah was born in April eighth, eighteen thirteen. Margaretta was 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:50.360 born October seventh, eighteen thirty three, wow, twenty years later, 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:54.520 and Catherine was born March twenty seventh, eighteen thirty seven. 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:58.000 So there's a huge gap between Leah and the two sisters. 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:01.360 When Catherine was eleven and Margretta was fourteen, so this 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:02.400 is eighteen forty eight. 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:03.880 She practically raised her sisters. 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:05.640 Well, no, I mean they had parents, I. 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:06.920 Know, but I mean, you know, it isn't you're an 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:08.320 older sibling if you're that much older. 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:12.680 I'm yes, just like a kind of like yeah, So 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:15.160 eighteen forty eight. They're living with their parents, John and 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:19.079 Margaret Fox in Hydesville, New York. So, Hydesville is basically 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:24.080 an intersection about thirty miles east of Rochester. The oldest sister, Leah, 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:27.800 she lived in Rochester and was married. Her married name 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:32.960 was Leah Foxfish, Leah Fox Fish, Badger, raccoon, dear stray cat. 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:36.400 She just picked what she saw to window. So anyway, Hydesville. 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:39.720 All that's there now is a historical marker and a 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:42.440 one room house with a display about the Fox sisters 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:42.679 in it. 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:43.839 Oh wow, the. 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:47.280 Display looks like an elementary school science fair. Oh yes, 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:51.360 it's like it's got those three panel poster board things, 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:54.440 and there are portraits drawn in what looks like cran 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:57.959 I'm not kidding. And there's a dollhouse replica. 0:09:58.080 --> 0:09:59.600 There's a third grade science fair. 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:01.880 It exactly looks like that. 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:03.040 How do I know this? 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:05.040 Did I fly to upstate New York for the day? 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:07.800 I imagining a Google tour? Yeah? 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:10.040 Go yes, Google Earth. 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:11.080 Yeah, it's amazing. 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:14.360 So the marker out on the lush grass that runs 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:18.200 along Hydesville Road reads the Fox Sisters. That's in all caps. Well, 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:19.640 the whole thing's in all caps. But I just like 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:23.560 the Fox sisters on this site. Events of March thirty first, 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:27.720 eighteen forty eight began. Sisters Maggie and Kate Fox's central 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:31.319 role in the origin of modern spiritualism. Oh wow, yeah, 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:34.240 that's pretty presumptuous using their nicknames, right. 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:38.079 You know, maybe maybe they preferred that. 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:40.839 As I was saying, the family, well, the mom, dad, 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:42.800 and the two youngest girls. They lived in Hydesville in 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:46.040 eighteen forty eight. It's about to go down, Saron, right, Yeah, 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:48.960 they lived in a farmhouse, right, and legend had it 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:56.480 at that time. Yeah, the farmhouse was haunted. Oh, March 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:58.680 thirty first, eighteen forty eight, that was the ghost. 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:01.800 I knew it, right, I know, yeah? You know me, 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:02.760 I'm like, that's a ghost. 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:06.480 Eighteen forty eight, March thirty first, April Fool's Eve. 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:08.679 Oh is that important? Back then? 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:11.400 Here I go on, Maggie and Kate, what the heck? 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:13.319 I'll act like I'm familiar with him too. Maggie and 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:16.680 Kate they ran to a neighbor's house and they said, 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:20.839 we hear weird noises in our house. All right, creepy girls. 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:24.000 It's like, in fact, we hear these noises every night 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:25.120 before we get out of bed. 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:27.160 Weird pre Victorian children. 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:30.200 Why are you telling us this? They told him that 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:32.200 they were pretty sure their place was haunted and that 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:34.959 there was like a ghostly entity trying to communicate with them. 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:37.199 The neighbor thinks the girls are full of it. I 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:39.000 with the neighbor, like, why are you telling me this? 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:40.680 Go home, Mags, you got to go. 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:42.200 But then he's like, Can'm going to go over and 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:42.800 check it out? 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:45.680 He's bored, There's not a whole lot to do. He's like, 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:47.600 the candle's almost out, and here I get it. 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:51.000 Because if it's real, he's witnessed an honest to goodness haunting. 0:11:51.200 --> 0:11:51.840 That's true. 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:55.640 If it's bogus, he has plenty to talk about Over 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:57.280 a barrel of nails at the general store. 0:11:57.320 --> 0:11:58.880 Oh yeah, he's got the best story of the season. 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:03.400 Those creepy little fox sisters came over and I'll tell 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:06.280 you what it was so weird and what he calls 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:10.600 the fox sisters the vixens? Do you think the guy 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:14.920 he came over it was over. Maggie and Kate jumped 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:18.040 into bed. Their mom was standing in the room. 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:20.920 So wait, wait, so these two teenage girls bring a 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:22.840 strange man. Back to the neighbor. Back to the house. 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:24.440 They hop in bad. The mom's standing there and what 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:24.960 are you doing here? 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:27.959 You know? The mom's like, well, go ahead, girls, So 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:32.880 she says out loud, now count five, and there's a pause, 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:37.080 and then everyone in the room hears five knocks, seemingly 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:41.160 coming from nowhere and everywhere, all at once. So they hear. 0:12:44.040 --> 0:12:45.920 Five knocks, all right, five five. 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:47.600 So the neighbor looks a little freaked out. 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:48.960 Right, It was like, alright, what's going on here? 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:51.160 And he like looks around the room. He's trying to 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:53.440 figure out what could have produced the noise. The mom 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:57.600 then says, count to fifteen. I'm not going to knock 0:12:57.600 --> 0:12:58.120 out fifteen. 0:12:58.480 --> 0:12:59.200 You know that's a lot. 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:02.000 And you know what fifteen knocks? 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:06.720 Pretend horse counting? Yeah, go on, So mother. 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:10.080 Fox then she asks the neighbor, hey, buddy, how old 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:15.920 are you? And he goes thirty three thirty three knocks, okay, okay. 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:19.520 So by this time the neighbor is like, well spooked, he's. 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:22.240 He's impressed by numbers. He's very knocking. 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:25.360 Numbers are knocking. So he asked MoMA Fox and the 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:29.240 kids like, who is this injured spirit, Who's who's doing this? 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:33.760 And the girl say, mister split foot, who satan? 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:39.040 Oh, mister split the cloven host split foot? I got you? 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:40.559 Now if I'm the neighbor. 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:41.280 Yeah, I'm going through the window. 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:45.400 I just like plug my nose and pout. 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:49.160 Those two pre Victorian doll baby weird children. But the 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:51.559 devil's in their room knocking on the floor and their 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:55.320 mom's cool. But like under they'll good, I'm gonna sell 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:57.040 my farm. You guys want to buy, because I'm out 0:13:57.080 --> 0:13:57.280 of here. 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:00.120 He runs right, he takes off, he gets. 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:02.000 And even if there's no devil, I don't want to 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:04.280 live next to those people who believe that the devil's there. 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:05.839 See either way, I don't want it. 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:07.240 Well, guess who else left? 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:08.600 The dad? The family? 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:11.880 The whole family abandoned the house. Okay, go to Would 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:13.040 you live in a haunted house? 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:16.240 Depends? Am I like living in the haunted house? That 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:18.320 like I was the one who discovered it or I 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:21.120 moved into the haunted house and I was like, oh man, 0:14:21.160 --> 0:14:23.480 this is haunted. Like if I was like in the house, right, 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:25.640 I was the one who determined it was haunted and 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:27.680 it wasn't that like Oh, everyone knew. And I've now 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:29.800 moved into the local haunted house just to see what 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:31.680 it's like to live in the haunted house. Now I 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:32.360 ain't doing that. 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:34.320 Wait, so you wouldn't go if someone said live in 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:36.360 this house, PS, it's haunted, you'd like never know. 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:38.200 But if I was in the house and I discovered 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:40.360 it was haunted, hell, I might just, you know, keep 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:41.880 it up, because I was like, well, maybe the ghost 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:43.320 got something to say. It would have to get to 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:45.120 the point that the ghost wanted me out. Then I'd 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:48.760 be like, Okay, I'm out. Yeah, okay, fair right, that's rational. 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:49.760 We're talking ghosts. 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:52.320 Well, the Fox family had no interest in coexisting with 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:55.120 a ghost, you see, ration into it, so they abandoned 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:55.480 the house. 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:56.880 Poor neighbor gotta sell it though. 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:01.040 Well, they sent the girls to live with Leah in Rochester. 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:05.480 And Rochester at the time was a hotbed of religious activity, 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:10.600 including Millerism, and that's the precursor to the Seventh day Adventist. 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:12.280 Oh, I didn't know Millerism. 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:15.960 Well, not a lot of people do, there, I didn't 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:19.000 until I looked this up. Word about the spooky Fox 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:23.280 sisters spread, as well as rumors about the farmhouse. 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:24.840 So that one's got a big mouth. 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:26.240 Oh yeah, he told everybody. 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:27.000 He went right to the. 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:28.960 Everybody. 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:33.400 Yeah he's and then you start talking. One of the 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:36.240 rumors was that a pedlar, like a little salesman guy. 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:38.160 Yeah, guy shows up with a bag of stuff and 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:40.120 unfolded on your porch. Is that you do you like 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:41.720 to it's a dented pan. 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:45.560 That the pedlar had been murdered in the house five 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:46.640 years prior. 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:48.760 So, so it's the ghost of the pedlar. 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:53.400 Yes, enter Amy and Isaac Post. All right, let's take 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:57.160 a break and we come back. We'll learn more about 0:15:57.160 --> 0:16:21.040 this gruesome teosom. Hello, hey, Elizabeth Dett what you're doing girl, 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:27.000 I'm welcoming the spirits. Hello, welcome fox sisters. They communicated 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:27.520 with the spirit. 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:29.400 I'm still looking around. I'm like, look, Wayne, I. 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:31.120 Can be able to see him. Oh okay, let to 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:37.240 start a knocking rumor of a man murdered in a farmhouse. Pedlar, Yeah, pedlar, 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:41.680 he's on bicycle. Amy and Isaac Post they got wind 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:45.520 of this. Who are Amy and Isaac Post, niece. 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:47.440 And nephew of Emily Posts, Miss Manners. 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:49.640 Yes, they were Hicksite Quakers. 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:53.080 I was close so close up in Rochester Hicksite Quakers. 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:55.560 That meant that they were Quakers who followed the teachings 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:56.640 of Elias Hicks. 0:16:56.920 --> 0:17:00.400 Ah, so splinter Quakersah, exactly. 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:04.280 Elias Hicks didn't believe in original sin or the Trinity, 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:07.560 or predestination or an external devil. 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:12.760 Okay, sections this is lazy about starting his own religion. 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:16.840 So he's a Quaker. He splits with the rest of 0:17:16.880 --> 0:17:20.040 the friends and his followers became known as Hicksite Quakers. 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:21.560 The Posts. 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:24.720 They were abolitionists, and they worked for women's rights. They 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:28.440 created an interfaith anti slavery group. And Amy was at 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:31.080 the Seneca Falls Convention in eighteen forty eight. 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:32.880 Oh so the beginning of feminism. Yeah. 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:35.760 And they were also early adopters of spiritualism. 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:39.000 All the is a lot of meeting right there. Yeah. 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:42.160 So Isaac and Amy they got all head up about 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:44.159 the story of the guy being murdered in the Fox 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:45.600 house five years ago. 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:49.520 Did the neighbor remember this person being with any confirmation? 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:52.440 No, I don't know if he started it or if. 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:54.000 It just where this rumor started. 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:56.880 Well, it's like where most rumors, You don't know where 0:17:56.880 --> 0:17:57.400 it begins. 0:17:57.480 --> 0:17:58.399 Yeah, I was just wondering. 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:02.439 Well, like any good paranormal investigators, they formed a group 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:04.600 to go and check out the basement of the spooky house. 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:04.840 Good. 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:08.960 Yeah, as you do. Unlike most paranormal investigators who only 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:12.240 find dust flares on their film posing as spirit orbs. Yes, 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:16.600 these guys found stuff, bone, fragments, hair. 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:17.960 Oh yeah. 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:20.240 No word on whether these were human or animal, but 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:23.639 it honestly doesn't matter. Everyone was positive that the quote 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:27.960 injured spirit was trying to communicate, so the Posts invited 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:29.960 the Fox sisters to their house to see if the 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:33.760 girls could continue communicating with spirits from another locale. Like 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:35.440 is it just the house or is it you? 0:18:36.680 --> 0:18:37.120 Scientific? 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:38.080 Yeah? 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:39.320 So scientific? 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:42.399 This was what Isaac Post had to say. Quote, I 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:45.359 suppose I went with as much unbelief as Thomas felt 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:48.400 when he was introduced to Jesus after he had ascended, 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:52.200 But he changed his mind by quote very distinct thumps 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:56.680 under the floor and several apparent answers. Well, he should 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:58.720 have stated, not doubting Thomas. 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:00.800 I'm wondering, like, how hard is it to look under 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:01.240 the floor. 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:05.720 That's the thing they you'll see, Okay, that knocking sound 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:08.960 wasn't under the floor, It was their cracking joints what 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:14.639 Kate and Maggie confessed to their older sister Leah that 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:16.920 they'd figured out how to crack the knuckles in their 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:20.400 toes in a way that made movement almost impossible to detect. 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:24.520 Oh but this, oh thirty three times. 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:26.840 That's my question. You're running out of joints, girls, Like, 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:27.840 how is that happening? 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:30.520 I can crack my knuckles. But between the two. 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:32.840 Of them, you know, but still, and they're saying, it's 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:35.080 just their toes, So maybe it's over. Maybe they've got 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:37.200 like a loose I've have like a. 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:39.000 Thumb sock where you can pop it over and over again. 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:41.840 But that's what they're doing. So they did this with 0:19:41.920 --> 0:19:45.520 their feet resting on a wooden stool, okay, and like 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:48.280 sometimes or on the floor. So there's nothing that anyone 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:48.840 can see. 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:50.480 But it's loud enough. It sounds like it's everywhere. 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:54.119 Yeah, And the amplification of the cracking joint made the 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:57.520 noise sound really like you said, it's everywhere, it's otherworldly. 0:19:57.760 --> 0:19:59.840 Was just bouncing around off the floorboards. 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:02.160 And everything else, and you can't point to one specific 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:05.600 thing that's making the noise. So with this knowledge, Leah 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:08.400 was like, count me in. I can crack my knuckles too. 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:12.560 Let's do this. So she convinced Isaac that she was 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:17.360 communicating with his recently deceased daughter. Oh ethical o, she's 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:21.840 all crack Oh, she says, hey, that's really terrible. So 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:24.520 the Posts are believers after that, of course, of course 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:25.119 they're hungry. 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:27.639 They want to eat, they want to talk to their Wow. 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:30.720 So they rented the Corinthian Hall, which was the largest 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:34.800 assembly hall in Rochester, and they promoted this wonder and 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:39.080 four hundred people showed up. This was the first demonstration 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:42.600 of spiritualism to a paying public. Oh wow, emphasis on 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:47.119 the paying. So after the demonstration was over, I mean, 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:49.720 because that's the thing, like, if they were just honestly 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:52.240 talking to the dead, why not just do it in 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:54.119 a public space. Why do you have to charge people? 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:56.560 Spiritualist got to eat too. 0:20:56.640 --> 0:20:58.680 We'll do it for the good their kids. I don't 0:20:58.680 --> 0:20:59.879 make their parents get jobs. 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:02.919 I'm not the best capitalist, Elizabeth, all right, I can't 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:04.760 decide why they should be paid. 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:08.680 So after their little show, Amy Post took the sisters backstage. 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:11.879 They went into a private room. She had them stripped down. Okay, 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:17.879 she said, I don't know what I'm saying. She had 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:23.119 a stripped down But there were a bunch of people there. 0:21:23.000 --> 0:21:26.840 There was a group of skeptics. Okay, you're going to 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:27.720 keep doing that. 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:30.639 I don't even know what song I'm trying to do. 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:33.200 So the skeptics saw that they don't have any devices 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:33.960 hit none of theirs. 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:35.920 Sure, okay, yeah, this is common we have. We saw 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:39.239 this a bit Houdini and uh what you call out 0:21:39.240 --> 0:21:41.560 your Conan Doyle when they had they got the like strip. 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:46.399 Well, it's like the coronation of King Charles. Get behind the. 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:48.600 Screen, we got the Holy Oils. We're gonna rub on. Yeah, 0:21:48.760 --> 0:21:50.680 it's always like if you want to brew something. Yeah, 0:21:50.760 --> 0:21:53.000 they play the music because you're taking off your clothes. 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:57.080 That's my saucy music. I'm going to do the feather 0:21:57.160 --> 0:21:57.919 dance in a second. 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:00.280 There wasn't any evidence, right. 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:04.119 Dan to the seven. Yeah, and there's a day. 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:04.520 They were born. 0:22:04.920 --> 0:22:06.280 No electric devices. 0:22:06.240 --> 0:22:08.119 Here, just two little mediums. 0:22:07.720 --> 0:22:12.000 Well three so yeah, boy. 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:17.560 Eighteenth century Austrian healer Franz Anton Mesmer, he was a 0:22:17.600 --> 0:22:19.480 popular guy in eighteen forties and marriag. 0:22:19.240 --> 0:22:20.439 Oh, yeah, I got a story for him for you. 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:23.919 He said everything in existence in the whole universe is 0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:25.800 controlled bay quote magnetic fluid. 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:27.919 Yeah, that's him, that's Mesmer. 0:22:28.080 --> 0:22:31.040 And what happens if your fluid becomes imbalanced, Well, it's 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:31.920 going to make you sick. 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:34.920 Yeah, you probably need leeches or probably some cocaine. 0:22:35.160 --> 0:22:37.120 How can you be cured? You got to get balanced, 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:40.280 and how did you get balanced? Mesmer has the answer? 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:41.000 What's the answer? 0:22:41.119 --> 0:22:44.080 He said that he could restore the balance by waving 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:50.200 his hands over a person's body and this would cause 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:54.639 a mesmerized hypnotic state, that's the word. And when the 0:22:54.640 --> 0:22:57.800 person was mesmerized, he could fiddle with the magnetic force 0:22:57.840 --> 0:22:59.160 and boom. Healthy. Dude. 0:22:59.240 --> 0:23:01.000 If I had a better name, that'd be my goal 0:23:01.119 --> 0:23:04.720 to have my name be turned down. Yeah, a verb 0:23:04.880 --> 0:23:07.120 or an adjective, so you like, run your nesk. I'd 0:23:07.160 --> 0:23:11.360 be cool with mesmerize, I mean martinized. There's something anyway, 0:23:11.359 --> 0:23:13.160 but Burnetti's. 0:23:12.920 --> 0:23:18.160 Sarennie maybe sarahize something. Uh. Sometimes when people were under 0:23:18.160 --> 0:23:20.680 his spell, they said they were visited by spirits from 0:23:20.680 --> 0:23:24.600 other dimensions naturally, that's pretty cool. Yeah, you're into that 0:23:24.640 --> 0:23:27.920 sort of thing. Around the time that Mesmer was Mesmerizing, 0:23:28.080 --> 0:23:33.080 the Swedish mystic and philosopher Emmanuel Swedenborg. He was coming 0:23:33.160 --> 0:23:36.920 up too. He believed the afterlife consisted of three heavens, 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:41.400 three hells, and a middle space where every person went 0:23:41.480 --> 0:23:44.800 after dying Cleveland. So it was like a processing center Cleveland. 0:23:45.480 --> 0:23:47.119 This middle place was supposed to be a lot like 0:23:47.160 --> 0:23:51.280 Earth or cle Cleveland. He said. Selfish folks would end 0:23:51.359 --> 0:23:53.320 up in one of the hells depending on how bad 0:23:53.359 --> 0:23:56.239 they were. Nice, caring people could make it to one 0:23:56.280 --> 0:23:59.719 of the heavens depending on how good they were. He wrote, quote, 0:24:00.040 --> 0:24:02.720 the Lord casts no one into hell, but those who 0:24:02.720 --> 0:24:05.840 are there have deliberately cast themselves into it and keep 0:24:05.920 --> 0:24:09.600 themselves there. He sounds fun, he's super fun, and he 0:24:09.880 --> 0:24:11.919 you know, kind of then gets absorbed into all the 0:24:11.920 --> 0:24:15.879 spiritualism stuff. Nearly a century later, a man named Andrew 0:24:16.000 --> 0:24:20.080 Jackson Davis. He sounds like maybe a Civil War general, 0:24:20.119 --> 0:24:20.600 but he's not. 0:24:20.720 --> 0:24:23.720 Totally or on the wrong side exactly. 0:24:25.040 --> 0:24:29.440 He was known as John the Baptist of modern Spiritualism. 0:24:29.480 --> 0:24:31.919 So he took the chocolate of Mesmer and the peanut 0:24:31.960 --> 0:24:35.680 butter of Swedenborg, and he made a delicious book. He 0:24:35.760 --> 0:24:38.560 communicated with the spirit of Swedenborg through a series of 0:24:38.600 --> 0:24:43.159 mesmeric trances. Okay, and Davis recorded these messages in a 0:24:43.200 --> 0:24:47.040 giant book called The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations 0:24:47.040 --> 0:24:50.320 and a Voice to Mankind. Oh wow, I see that title. 0:24:50.359 --> 0:24:51.880 I'm like, I don't know what that's books about. I'm 0:24:51.880 --> 0:24:52.440 not reading that. 0:24:53.040 --> 0:24:55.520 So he's like the Edgar Casey before caid you write 0:24:55.520 --> 0:24:56.159 a bestseller. 0:24:56.280 --> 0:24:58.600 Yes, So this is what he had to say. Quote, 0:24:58.880 --> 0:25:01.480 it is a truth that's the spirit's commune with one another. 0:25:01.600 --> 0:25:03.919 While one is in the body and the other in 0:25:03.960 --> 0:25:07.760 the higher spheres. All the world will hail with delight 0:25:08.000 --> 0:25:10.919 the ushering in of that era when the interiors of 0:25:11.000 --> 0:25:14.159 men will be opened and the spiritual communication will be 0:25:14.320 --> 0:25:16.080 established the dead. 0:25:16.240 --> 0:25:20.720 Yeah, it'll be a year later. 0:25:21.400 --> 0:25:23.399 This is what Davis wrote in his diary. I stole 0:25:23.440 --> 0:25:25.720 his diary. I'm gonna tell you what's in there. Quote 0:25:26.600 --> 0:25:30.679 about daylight this morning, A warm breathing passed over my face, 0:25:30.840 --> 0:25:34.840 and I heard a sorry it's addicted. 0:25:35.000 --> 0:25:35.879 I know you can't. 0:25:36.320 --> 0:25:40.119 And I heard a voice, tender and strong, saying, brother, 0:25:40.640 --> 0:25:45.080 the good work has begun. Behold a living demonstration is born. 0:25:45.760 --> 0:25:53.200 That sounds like some ghostbreasters stuff. Okay, So like the. 0:25:52.800 --> 0:25:56.240 Date of the diary entry March thirty first, eighteen forty eight, 0:25:57.280 --> 0:26:00.280 the same day that the Fox sisters displayed their toolence 0:26:00.320 --> 0:26:03.159 to their mother and their neighbor, a great awakening, a 0:26:03.280 --> 0:26:05.240 living demonstration was born. 0:26:05.440 --> 0:26:08.879 Interesting for the set. 0:26:09.119 --> 0:26:13.000 So upon hearing about the sisters, Davis invited them to 0:26:13.040 --> 0:26:16.480 his house in New York to witness their abilities himself. 0:26:16.920 --> 0:26:19.000 And once they wowed and with their wo w, it 0:26:19.080 --> 0:26:24.399 was on. The sisters went on tour. Okay, it was 0:26:24.440 --> 0:26:25.800 I got a bus merch. 0:26:25.960 --> 0:26:27.040 They took the road. 0:26:27.680 --> 0:26:30.280 They booked a suite at Barnum's Hotel, which was owned 0:26:30.280 --> 0:26:33.159 by the cousin of P. T. Barnum, that was on 0:26:33.200 --> 0:26:36.920 the corner of Broadway and Maiden Lane. Sessions were conducted 0:26:36.920 --> 0:26:39.800 in the hotel's parlor for the admission price of a dollar, 0:26:40.200 --> 0:26:42.359 and that was done at ten am, five pm, and 0:26:42.400 --> 0:26:45.280 eight pm. They had three shows a day. They offered. 0:26:45.400 --> 0:26:47.159 You know, if you wanted to, you could book a 0:26:47.200 --> 0:26:54.879 private session. As many as thirty people would be in 0:26:54.920 --> 0:26:57.800 attendance at a time in the in the hotel's parlor. 0:26:58.200 --> 0:27:01.280 Famous people stopped by. We always liked to love them. 0:27:01.320 --> 0:27:01.879 Who are they? 0:27:02.040 --> 0:27:06.000 James Finnimore Cooper, Oh, yes, the writer William Colin Bryant 0:27:06.480 --> 0:27:10.920 so Journer truth Wow Yeah. Journalist and abolitionist William Lloyd 0:27:10.920 --> 0:27:13.680 Garrison was there during a session when a spirit tapped 0:27:13.680 --> 0:27:17.320 out a message quote, spiritualism will work miracles in the 0:27:17.359 --> 0:27:20.760 cause of reform in time to a popular song. 0:27:21.720 --> 0:27:24.040 What was the popular song? I thought, you're going to 0:27:24.080 --> 0:27:27.440 tell me it's her mother's favorite song. 0:27:29.720 --> 0:27:33.720 You know, it's iambic pentameter. Yeah, anything in iambic pentameter. 0:27:33.440 --> 0:27:35.960 Can be that interesting, Leah. 0:27:36.119 --> 0:27:37.960 She stayed in New York and took callers in a 0:27:38.040 --> 0:27:42.560 sance room, and Maggie and Kate continued touring. It wasn't 0:27:42.560 --> 0:27:47.000 always glamorous life on the road, Oh yeah. Maggie seemed 0:27:47.000 --> 0:27:49.280 to be a particular target for people trying to debunk 0:27:49.320 --> 0:27:52.119 the girls. For some reason, they thought she was possessed 0:27:52.320 --> 0:27:54.840 a lot of times interesting. She was almost kidnapped by 0:27:54.840 --> 0:27:56.960 a group of men who were offended by her performance 0:27:57.000 --> 0:27:58.359 while in Troy, New York. 0:27:59.119 --> 0:28:01.040 They were gonna like shake it out of her, I. 0:28:01.040 --> 0:28:04.560 Don't know, put her in a pillowcase and throw her 0:28:04.560 --> 0:28:04.920 in the river. 0:28:05.000 --> 0:28:06.080 I don't know, bag of kittens. 0:28:06.119 --> 0:28:09.480 Who knows? Yeah, exactly. Horace Greeley founder. 0:28:09.280 --> 0:28:12.440 And editor of the Go West young Man The New York. 0:28:12.240 --> 0:28:15.000 Tribune began acting as a chaperone for the sisters. 0:28:15.040 --> 0:28:16.639 Oh, this got. 0:28:16.520 --> 0:28:19.760 Them entry into holding seances for the upper classes. And 0:28:20.160 --> 0:28:23.520 he was a mark and he was a pretty lousy chaperone. Yeah, 0:28:23.720 --> 0:28:26.400 he was really lousy. He let them drink wine. Well, 0:28:26.480 --> 0:28:28.280 you know, it's like little kids get him drunk. 0:28:28.320 --> 0:28:30.199 You know, I'm not thinking that that was a mistake 0:28:30.200 --> 0:28:30.640 on his part. 0:28:30.800 --> 0:28:32.560 He's like a fun mom in the suburbs. 0:28:32.640 --> 0:28:33.600 Yeah, that's what I'm picturing. 0:28:33.760 --> 0:28:36.360 Then wonders why there are so many single car accidents 0:28:36.400 --> 0:28:43.760 around prom anyway, So scandals started to surface. They didn't 0:28:43.800 --> 0:28:47.080 really have any supervision. What started out as a prank 0:28:47.160 --> 0:28:49.880 to mess with their mom and neighbor, what was supposed 0:28:49.920 --> 0:28:52.120 to just be a goof to fend off boredom, was 0:28:52.160 --> 0:28:55.040 now the source of incredible destructive stress for them. 0:28:55.080 --> 0:28:56.760 Oh yeah, they're about to get in an invitation to 0:28:56.800 --> 0:28:57.560 the White House. 0:28:57.400 --> 0:28:59.640 Totally well, mind you. This was all within a year 0:28:59.680 --> 0:29:00.000 and a half. 0:29:00.080 --> 0:29:00.720 Yeah, exactly. 0:29:01.200 --> 0:29:04.160 November eighteen forty nine, they gave a performance that ended 0:29:04.160 --> 0:29:07.120 with the visiting spirits tapping out. We will now bid 0:29:07.160 --> 0:29:10.120 you farewell because they're like, let's just stop. 0:29:09.840 --> 0:29:12.240 This other knuckle o feet just swollen. 0:29:14.320 --> 0:29:15.000 How are they talking? 0:29:15.080 --> 0:29:17.200 And I imagine this is Morse code or unless they 0:29:17.280 --> 0:29:20.640 established some like you know code on the on the floor, 0:29:20.720 --> 0:29:22.560 like one is a two is bag. 0:29:22.720 --> 0:29:25.120 I feel like in Star Wars when someone can talk 0:29:25.160 --> 0:29:27.840 to one of the droids who's just beeping because they 0:29:27.880 --> 0:29:31.440 have someone who's like, oh yeah, they said, now bid 0:29:31.480 --> 0:29:32.640 you farewell. That's what they said. 0:29:32.720 --> 0:29:34.600 Yeah, I've been I've been to all the shows. 0:29:34.760 --> 0:29:37.920 So they make that farewell message and for two weeks 0:29:37.960 --> 0:29:41.200 there are no spiritual visitations. But Leah wanted to get 0:29:41.240 --> 0:29:44.360 that money, so she made. 0:29:44.160 --> 0:29:45.920 Like Gus the oldest one. She got real life problems, 0:29:46.000 --> 0:29:46.640 she made. 0:29:46.400 --> 0:29:48.280 Like a true stage mama, and she just worked through 0:29:48.320 --> 0:29:51.800 the pain. The show must go on, Zaron. So four 0:29:51.880 --> 0:29:52.360 years on. 0:29:53.040 --> 0:29:56.040 The gar letting her way through spiritualism totally. 0:29:56.640 --> 0:29:58.880 Four years on. More and more doubts are being cast 0:29:58.920 --> 0:30:02.920 on their abilities. During a performance four years during a 0:30:02.960 --> 0:30:06.520 performance in Buffalo, New York, pillows were placed beneath the 0:30:06.560 --> 0:30:10.040 feet of the sisters and then that night's performance was 0:30:10.080 --> 0:30:13.800 awfully quiet. Saren hm, No ghosts came and knocking. 0:30:13.720 --> 0:30:15.240 Yeah, because they couldn't get the breast off. 0:30:15.160 --> 0:30:18.400 The Yeah, whenever it looked like the sisters would be 0:30:18.440 --> 0:30:21.720 exposed as frauds, Leah would pull up this like stock 0:30:21.800 --> 0:30:25.800 defense card. You guys, the negative, doubtful energy in the 0:30:25.880 --> 0:30:28.640 room is keeping the spirits away her. 0:30:28.800 --> 0:30:30.720 You don't believe it won't happen. 0:30:31.080 --> 0:30:34.040 Only the peer of heart who truly believes can experience 0:30:34.080 --> 0:30:35.280 what my sisters are doing. 0:30:35.440 --> 0:30:36.760 Coincidental Yeah. 0:30:36.800 --> 0:30:40.040 Eighteen fifty one, a relative of the Fox family, missus 0:30:40.040 --> 0:30:43.480 Norman Culver, She signed a confession. She said that she 0:30:43.560 --> 0:30:46.640 had helped the Fox sisters by touching them to indicate 0:30:46.720 --> 0:30:50.120 when the rapping sounds should be made. She said they 0:30:50.200 --> 0:30:54.440 used their knees, ankles, toe joints to make the sounds. Hm, 0:30:54.600 --> 0:30:57.000 I can I can crack pretty much anything, can you. 0:30:57.120 --> 0:30:57.320 Yeah? 0:30:57.400 --> 0:31:01.920 Sure, just snap my bones. That's hilarious to me. They're 0:31:01.960 --> 0:31:03.800 just running, running through all the joints. 0:31:04.040 --> 0:31:06.920 Yeah, I mean, yeah, I got some ricketty joints. But like, 0:31:06.960 --> 0:31:08.960 I don't think I could reliably do three shows a 0:31:09.080 --> 0:31:10.160 day for four years. 0:31:10.240 --> 0:31:13.160 I got to busted up ankle. Yeah, but when when 0:31:13.160 --> 0:31:15.360 I move it a lot of times it'll just yeah. 0:31:15.200 --> 0:31:17.400 No, imagine doing that every day for like you gets 0:31:17.440 --> 0:31:20.440 so swollen. Yeah, and then like when it rains, i'd 0:31:20.440 --> 0:31:20.880 want to cry. 0:31:20.960 --> 0:31:22.640 But I think I could be a medium. I love 0:31:22.760 --> 0:31:23.800 popping my joints. 0:31:24.040 --> 0:31:26.240 Okay, there you go, let's let's get you. I'll be 0:31:26.280 --> 0:31:26.640 your agent. 0:31:26.960 --> 0:31:32.600 Not like you enjoy popping joints. I enjoy popping my joints. Anyway, 0:31:33.120 --> 0:31:35.680 the girls were still on the road. They were still 0:31:35.680 --> 0:31:40.360 practicing that early hustle culture selling vibes. The next stop 0:31:40.440 --> 0:31:45.440 had some unexpected twists. When we come back from this break, 0:31:45.520 --> 0:31:46.840 I will tell you all about. 0:31:46.640 --> 0:32:07.920 Them, Zarin. 0:32:08.400 --> 0:32:12.120 Yes, Elizabeth, it was eighteen fifty two, oh you, oh yeah, 0:32:12.120 --> 0:32:16.640 that's right it was, and Maggie was seventeen. Maggie when 0:32:16.680 --> 0:32:20.920 their travels took them to Philadelphia. It was there that 0:32:21.000 --> 0:32:25.960 she met thirty year old Arctic explorer Elisha kent Kin. 0:32:26.440 --> 0:32:27.840 That's a heck of a name, isn't it. 0:32:28.240 --> 0:32:30.240 Cain was convinced that the sisters. 0:32:29.840 --> 0:32:32.160 Were frauds, got on Elisha. 0:32:32.640 --> 0:32:34.040 He did his best to debunk them. 0:32:34.280 --> 0:32:35.560 However, he fell in love. 0:32:35.640 --> 0:32:38.760 He came up empty. He said, after a whole month's trial, 0:32:38.800 --> 0:32:41.480 I could make nothing of them. Therefore they are a 0:32:41.480 --> 0:32:44.400 great mystery. So if he can't figure it out. It 0:32:44.480 --> 0:32:45.520 must not be able to be sold. 0:32:45.560 --> 0:32:47.680 I mean, he's an Arctic explorer, he can't do it. 0:32:47.800 --> 0:32:50.120 But you're right, he did find love. He and Maggie 0:32:50.160 --> 0:32:50.760 fell in love. 0:32:51.080 --> 0:32:51.920 I was wondering. 0:32:52.040 --> 0:32:53.760 He was thirteen years his junior. 0:32:53.920 --> 0:32:55.120 Okay, how old is she? 0:32:55.120 --> 0:32:58.840 She's what seventeen and he's a thirty year old Arctic explorer. 0:33:02.320 --> 0:33:04.440 He was controlling, but I would say in a good way. 0:33:04.920 --> 0:33:07.280 All right, Well, he convinced her to give up spiritualism 0:33:07.360 --> 0:33:08.040 and go to school. 0:33:08.160 --> 0:33:10.600 Oh that is yeah, I wouldn't call that controlling. That 0:33:10.720 --> 0:33:11.479 rational advice. 0:33:11.520 --> 0:33:13.360 He was genuinely in love with her. 0:33:13.440 --> 0:33:16.080 Yeah, reasonable, I'd like you to become a real person 0:33:16.160 --> 0:33:17.400 and enjoy things. 0:33:17.120 --> 0:33:20.920 Like stop your your spiritualist child star gig. 0:33:20.760 --> 0:33:23.840 Stop cracking your bones for bucks. Baby, he loved her. 0:33:24.160 --> 0:33:27.840 His family did not. Oh they were Philadelphia blue bloods. 0:33:28.480 --> 0:33:30.920 Oh so he's wealthy. That's why he could go Arctic explorers. 0:33:31.000 --> 0:33:33.000 How can you be a thirty year old Arctic explorer 0:33:33.040 --> 0:33:34.120 and like you come out of the. 0:33:34.080 --> 0:33:35.920 Story would either be the one holding the rope or 0:33:35.960 --> 0:33:39.160 you're the one paying for the rope. But yeah, so uh. 0:33:39.440 --> 0:33:42.880 They thought that she was like an ignorant heretic bumpkin. Yeah, 0:33:42.880 --> 0:33:46.240 I bet certainly not good enough for their boy. No, no, no, 0:33:46.480 --> 0:33:49.840 he vowed to marry her anyway, So he's getting ready 0:33:49.880 --> 0:33:52.080 to go on this expedition. Before he left, they had 0:33:52.080 --> 0:33:54.719 a ring exchange ceremony, and the idea was that they 0:33:54.720 --> 0:33:57.080 would have an actual wedding when he got back and 0:33:57.120 --> 0:34:00.400 make it legal. Unfortunately, they never got to walk down 0:34:00.400 --> 0:34:03.520 the aisle because two years later he got sick in 0:34:03.560 --> 0:34:05.640 Cuba and died at the age of thirty six. 0:34:06.280 --> 0:34:07.400 Huh. 0:34:07.440 --> 0:34:11.520 His funeral was the largest in American history until Abraham Lincoln's. 0:34:11.840 --> 0:34:16.319 Why a lunar crater Cain was named for him? What 0:34:17.040 --> 0:34:22.120 the waterway between Greenland and northernmost Canadian Islands, previously named 0:34:22.160 --> 0:34:26.080 Peabody Bay was renamed Caan Basin in his honor? What 0:34:26.160 --> 0:34:29.920 did he do be rich his family? You know? I mean, 0:34:29.960 --> 0:34:32.000 I guess he was he did. I shouldn't, I shouldn't 0:34:32.000 --> 0:34:33.080 diminish his So. 0:34:33.120 --> 0:34:35.480 He explored up around the greens. 0:34:36.880 --> 0:34:40.600 He wrote volumes on you know what he saw and 0:34:41.520 --> 0:34:42.839 Arctic geology. 0:34:43.520 --> 0:34:45.920 Explorers are people who are out where nobody is. How 0:34:45.960 --> 0:34:48.359 did he have the largest funeral at such a young 0:34:48.360 --> 0:34:50.120 age when it seems like. Most of his time was 0:34:50.120 --> 0:34:52.880 spent out where nobody was. So was his family like 0:34:53.040 --> 0:34:55.840 super like everyone wanted to go to the boys funeral 0:34:55.840 --> 0:34:56.399 like got for him. 0:34:56.680 --> 0:34:58.000 A lot of it had to do with the family. 0:34:58.239 --> 0:35:02.160 The family was wealthy and influence and they went off, 0:35:02.239 --> 0:35:04.560 oh yeah, and they refused to let Maggie attend this 0:35:04.640 --> 0:35:09.319 mega funeral. They denied their common law marriage and their 0:35:09.400 --> 0:35:12.480 ring ceremony, which meant that she was not in the will. 0:35:12.800 --> 0:35:14.239 Oh yeah, I guess that part. 0:35:14.640 --> 0:35:17.520 To honor his memory, she granted his wish to convert 0:35:17.520 --> 0:35:26.000 to Catholicism. He was not Catholic. He's be Catholic for me. 0:35:26.200 --> 0:35:27.279 He was a Presbyterian. 0:35:28.680 --> 0:35:30.080 If I could, I'd be Catholic. 0:35:31.400 --> 0:35:34.200 He thought that the iconography and the mysticism of the 0:35:34.239 --> 0:35:40.000 Catholic Church was like right up her Alley's Christian. 0:35:40.160 --> 0:35:42.520 There's there's bleeding gods on the wall. You'll love it. 0:35:42.600 --> 0:35:43.400 It's gonna be great. 0:35:43.840 --> 0:35:46.239 She was broken, though, and she was ashamed at the 0:35:46.280 --> 0:35:49.480 rejection from his family, so she hit the bottle. I mean, 0:35:49.520 --> 0:35:51.040 she's been drinking since she was a little kid. 0:35:51.080 --> 0:35:53.200 Yeah, I imagine at this point. 0:35:53.080 --> 0:35:56.280 Well yeah, and she vowed to quote Holy and Forever 0:35:56.440 --> 0:36:00.320 abandoned spiritualism, so she also got back at his family 0:36:00.360 --> 0:36:02.239 in the best way a criminal knows how. 0:36:02.520 --> 0:36:03.040 Wrote a book. 0:36:04.560 --> 0:36:06.760 It was called The Love Life of Doctor Caine. 0:36:10.200 --> 0:36:10.440 It was. 0:36:12.440 --> 0:36:13.239 Its evolved in. 0:36:16.880 --> 0:36:22.440 Bouncing. Sorry, go on, it's like the rockets. 0:36:22.520 --> 0:36:27.800 Producer said, it's kind of like a morning show Sanford 0:36:27.840 --> 0:36:33.560 and Son. It was a collection of the love letters. Meanwhile, Kate, 0:36:33.960 --> 0:36:37.400 she went the exact opposite way. She married a devout 0:36:37.440 --> 0:36:41.400 spiritualist and they had two kids, and she shot to 0:36:41.440 --> 0:36:45.960 the top of the spooky charts. As a medium, she 0:36:46.040 --> 0:36:49.360 had a trick where she would communicate two messages simultaneously. 0:36:49.520 --> 0:36:51.560 She would write one while saying the other out loud. 0:36:52.040 --> 0:36:53.800 It's like when I'm typing and talking to someone on 0:36:53.840 --> 0:36:54.640 the field at the same time. 0:36:54.719 --> 0:36:57.160 Big whoop. 0:36:58.560 --> 0:36:59.360 I'm in the audience. 0:36:59.400 --> 0:37:04.240 I go big, big whoop. Huh. 0:37:04.480 --> 0:37:07.760 She would also transcribe messages in reverse script. 0:37:07.680 --> 0:37:08.520 So he right backwards. 0:37:08.600 --> 0:37:10.160 Yeah, which, okay, that's a good one. I'll give you 0:37:10.200 --> 0:37:10.520 that one. 0:37:10.600 --> 0:37:13.840 Sure, So you got a memory and you can write backwards. 0:37:14.040 --> 0:37:18.640 She would hold demonstrations where blank cards would like spontaneously 0:37:18.760 --> 0:37:20.560 reveal words that weren't previously there. 0:37:20.800 --> 0:37:23.040 Oh you got some like some lemon. 0:37:24.320 --> 0:37:27.359 That's a good one though. Here's the best though. One 0:37:27.400 --> 0:37:31.879 of her children, Ferdinand, he was also a medium, and 0:37:31.960 --> 0:37:35.040 when he was only three, he would be possessed by spirits. 0:37:35.400 --> 0:37:37.040 That's cool, Yeah, I like that. 0:37:37.080 --> 0:37:38.919 I'd think if you'd like maybe like a caught fire, 0:37:38.960 --> 0:37:40.880 like the human torch, that'd be impressive. 0:37:40.880 --> 0:37:43.480 No hold on, the spirits would communicate through him. And 0:37:43.520 --> 0:37:46.080 how did people know this was happening. He had quote 0:37:46.120 --> 0:37:49.920 an unearthly glow that wouldn't radiate from his eyes. 0:37:50.080 --> 0:37:52.720 There you go, he went dark. Brandon, Now you're talking 0:37:52.719 --> 0:37:53.320 my language. 0:37:53.400 --> 0:37:54.400 Yes, I love it. 0:37:54.600 --> 0:37:56.480 So we want to get into that comic book, realm. 0:37:56.480 --> 0:37:59.239 I'm like, forget spiritualism, give me Cyclops. 0:37:59.480 --> 0:38:07.920 During a session with Charles, the Cyclops of Greek mythology. 0:38:08.640 --> 0:38:11.600 During a session with Charles Livermore, who was a wealthy banker, 0:38:12.080 --> 0:38:15.680 she summoned up his deceased wife and then also the 0:38:15.680 --> 0:38:17.000 spirit of Benjamin Franklin. 0:38:19.880 --> 0:38:20.759 That's a fun one to draw. 0:38:20.920 --> 0:38:23.319 So ben let everyone know that he was in the 0:38:23.320 --> 0:38:25.799 house by writing his name on a blank card. Just 0:38:25.920 --> 0:38:29.040 gave an autograph. Here you go. That's kind of The 0:38:29.080 --> 0:38:34.560 Civil War was big business for Kate. Grieving family members 0:38:34.600 --> 0:38:36.719 they would go to her, I need to commune with 0:38:36.840 --> 0:38:37.640 my lost loved. 0:38:37.520 --> 0:38:40.239 One, my brother, my daughter, my brother, my mother. 0:38:41.600 --> 0:38:46.279 This surgeon popularity meant that spectators they wanted miracles. They're like, 0:38:46.640 --> 0:38:50.759 I need a miracle two fingers up. They wanted it 0:38:50.840 --> 0:38:54.120 every session. I need a miracle every day, is what 0:38:54.160 --> 0:38:58.840 they would say. That took its toll on Kate. Like 0:38:58.880 --> 0:39:01.240 her sister before her, she started drinking heavily. 0:39:01.760 --> 0:39:04.839 It's nineteen hundred, the nineteenth century, eighteen hundred, so that's 0:39:04.880 --> 0:39:06.600 what you did. It was like, look, I don't have 0:39:06.600 --> 0:39:08.160 any good water. I got nothing to do. Let's drink 0:39:08.200 --> 0:39:08.440 about it. 0:39:08.520 --> 0:39:10.880 Drink, let's drink about it. Things went from bad to 0:39:10.960 --> 0:39:14.719 worse for the sisters. Leah attacked Kate publicly for her 0:39:14.800 --> 0:39:18.160 drinking problem, so she just aired their laundry. She accused 0:39:18.200 --> 0:39:21.000 Kate of being an unfit mother to her two young children. 0:39:21.400 --> 0:39:25.520 They're getting nasty. Kate was humiliated, and Maggie was pissed. 0:39:26.160 --> 0:39:27.920 She did not like this. She was so mad she 0:39:27.960 --> 0:39:30.880 made her own public announcement. She let it leak that 0:39:30.920 --> 0:39:34.040 the Fox sisters quote unquote abilities had been a hoax 0:39:34.040 --> 0:39:37.160 from day one. Oh and then she denounced spiritualism. 0:39:37.280 --> 0:39:38.080 She broke kay feb. 0:39:39.760 --> 0:39:43.000 The New York World paid Maggie fifteen hundred dollars, which 0:39:43.040 --> 0:39:45.840 is a lot of money, then to publish an interview. 0:39:45.920 --> 0:39:47.920 They this would be the lead up to a public 0:39:47.920 --> 0:39:50.279 announcement that she was going to make, and Kate would 0:39:50.280 --> 0:39:53.399 be in the audience to support. In the New York 0:39:53.440 --> 0:39:57.759 World interview, Maggie stated, quote, my sister Katie was the 0:39:57.800 --> 0:40:00.439 first to observe that by swishing her fingers she could 0:40:00.440 --> 0:40:03.279 produce certain noises with her knuckles and joints, and that 0:40:03.360 --> 0:40:06.120 the same effect could be made with the toes. Finding 0:40:06.120 --> 0:40:08.200 that we could make raps with our feet, first with 0:40:08.239 --> 0:40:10.920 one foot and then with both, we practiced until we 0:40:10.960 --> 0:40:13.440 could do this easily when the room was dark. Like 0:40:13.520 --> 0:40:16.879 most perplexing things, when made clear, it is astonishing how 0:40:16.920 --> 0:40:20.280 easily it was done. The wrapping is simply the result 0:40:20.360 --> 0:40:22.520 of perfect control of the muscles of the leg below 0:40:22.560 --> 0:40:24.960 the knee, which govern the tendons of the foot and 0:40:25.000 --> 0:40:27.080 allow the action of the toe and ankle bones that 0:40:27.120 --> 0:40:31.240 are not commonly known. Such perfect control is only possible 0:40:31.239 --> 0:40:33.400 when the child is taken at an early age and 0:40:33.520 --> 0:40:37.120 carefully and continually taught to practice the muscles which grow 0:40:37.200 --> 0:40:40.440 stiffer in later years. This, then, is the simple explanation 0:40:40.560 --> 0:40:42.600 of the whole method of knocks and wraps. 0:40:42.760 --> 0:40:45.439 So looks like making a Chinese gymnast. Yeah, you start 0:40:45.560 --> 0:40:48.120 very We train these bones well. 0:40:48.000 --> 0:40:50.839 And like like when they say that they they would 0:40:50.880 --> 0:40:53.359 make raps with their feet, that they're just like their 0:40:53.360 --> 0:40:55.360 feet are just her holding. 0:40:56.000 --> 0:40:59.360 Yeah, exactly, do a quick sixteen bars. Who's turning? 0:41:00.160 --> 0:41:04.640 The toe just grows the mouth all. Hey, my name 0:41:04.719 --> 0:41:08.880 is Toe, and I'm here to say I got a 0:41:09.480 --> 0:41:15.359 I love spirits in a major way. Zaren close your eyes. 0:41:17.400 --> 0:41:22.920 I want you to picture it. It's October twenty first, 0:41:23.040 --> 0:41:27.000 eighteen eighty eight. You're a young man in New York City, 0:41:27.360 --> 0:41:31.080 working days as an apprentice tailor. You consider yourself a 0:41:31.160 --> 0:41:34.279 curious citizen of the world. Went off the clock. You 0:41:34.360 --> 0:41:36.160 like to get out and about. It's the big apple 0:41:36.200 --> 0:41:39.440 baby city that never sleeps. You're in a crowd at 0:41:39.440 --> 0:41:43.000 the Academy of Music in Manhattan. It's a grand opera 0:41:43.080 --> 0:41:46.800 house by Union Square that has recently started offering vaudeville shows. 0:41:47.320 --> 0:41:49.400 You hear a woman, a mystic was going to give 0:41:49.440 --> 0:41:52.240 a talk or demonstration or something. You bought a ticket 0:41:52.320 --> 0:41:55.040 on a whim, and here you are, as two thousand 0:41:55.040 --> 0:41:57.880 other people crowd into their seats. A piano plays a 0:41:57.920 --> 0:42:00.839 popular tune of the day. When those around you were 0:42:00.880 --> 0:42:05.120 chatting away in excitement, speculating about what might happen on stage, 0:42:05.239 --> 0:42:08.360 the curtain pulls back and a hush falls over the crowd. 0:42:08.880 --> 0:42:12.200 The tinkling of the piano fades away. A slight, dark 0:42:12.239 --> 0:42:14.680 haired woman appears from the wings and makes her way 0:42:14.719 --> 0:42:17.279 to a spotlight in the center of the stage. She 0:42:17.440 --> 0:42:21.239 clears her throat, it's Margaretta Fox, and she's here to 0:42:21.320 --> 0:42:22.160 tell her story. 0:42:22.800 --> 0:42:23.920 Quote. 0:42:24.040 --> 0:42:26.560 When I began this deception, I was too young to 0:42:26.640 --> 0:42:29.960 know right from wrong that I have been mainly instrumental 0:42:30.000 --> 0:42:33.800 in perpetuating the fraud of spiritualism upon a two confiding public. 0:42:34.120 --> 0:42:37.400 Many of you already know. It is the greatest sorrow 0:42:37.400 --> 0:42:40.200 of my life. My sister Katie and myself were very 0:42:40.239 --> 0:42:43.759 young children when this horrible deception began. At night, when 0:42:43.760 --> 0:42:45.480 we went to bed, we used to tie an apple 0:42:45.520 --> 0:42:47.960 on a string and move the string up and down, 0:42:48.080 --> 0:42:50.440 causing the apple to bump on the floor, or we 0:42:50.440 --> 0:42:52.640 would drop the apple on the floor, making a strange 0:42:52.680 --> 0:42:55.680 noise every time it would rebound a great many people 0:42:55.760 --> 0:42:58.000 when they hear the wrapping imagine at once that the 0:42:58.040 --> 0:43:01.240 spirits are touching them. It was a very common delusion. 0:43:02.000 --> 0:43:04.239 Some very wealthy people came to see me some years 0:43:04.280 --> 0:43:06.319 ago when I lived in forty second Street, and I 0:43:06.320 --> 0:43:11.360 did some wrappings for them. I made the spirit wrap 0:43:11.360 --> 0:43:13.719 on the chair and one of the ladies cried out, 0:43:14.000 --> 0:43:18.040 I feel the spirit tapping me on the shoulder. Of course, 0:43:18.080 --> 0:43:19.160 that was pure imagination. 0:43:20.640 --> 0:43:21.120 I like it. 0:43:21.280 --> 0:43:23.920 Yeah. So Maggie then went on to show how they 0:43:23.960 --> 0:43:26.400 did this. She just like, you know, showed her ankle 0:43:26.960 --> 0:43:28.840 when we gasped, and then she's like, crack. 0:43:28.640 --> 0:43:30.760 Alac alecs dropped the boss. 0:43:33.000 --> 0:43:35.240 I just want to wrap. She took off her shoe 0:43:35.520 --> 0:43:38.040 and she put it on a wooden stool. And this 0:43:38.120 --> 0:43:41.040 is what the New York Herald reported quote, there stood 0:43:41.040 --> 0:43:44.640 a black robed, sharp faced widow working her big. 0:43:44.400 --> 0:43:48.560 Toe wow and solemnly. 0:43:48.120 --> 0:43:51.239 Declaring that it was in this way she created the 0:43:51.280 --> 0:43:55.319 excitement that has driven so many persons to suicide or insanity. 0:43:55.680 --> 0:43:57.759 One moment it was ludicrous, the next. 0:43:57.600 --> 0:43:58.280 It was weird. 0:44:00.200 --> 0:44:01.920 That one moment it was ludacris, the. 0:44:01.840 --> 0:44:04.279 Next TI was weird journalism. I really told the story. 0:44:04.360 --> 0:44:06.160 I feel like I was I learned everything I needed 0:44:06.160 --> 0:44:06.960 to know the heart. 0:44:06.800 --> 0:44:09.560 Of the matter. Maggie finished up her demonstration by saying 0:44:09.560 --> 0:44:11.200 that Leah knew from the beginning that it was all 0:44:11.239 --> 0:44:14.680 a prank, and that she decided to exploit the situation 0:44:14.800 --> 0:44:17.399 for cash. So at first, the little girls are just like, watch, 0:44:17.440 --> 0:44:18.600 we're going to freak out these people. 0:44:18.840 --> 0:44:20.239 Rememb We're going to freak out the adults like. 0:44:20.280 --> 0:44:22.840 There's some money to be made. She stared at the audience. 0:44:23.160 --> 0:44:25.879 Then she thanked God for being able to expose spiritualism, 0:44:25.960 --> 0:44:29.359 and then walked off the stage. There was now a 0:44:29.400 --> 0:44:33.319 split in the spiritualism movement. Samuel B. Britton he was 0:44:33.360 --> 0:44:35.960 the former publisher of the Spiritual Telegraph, which was the 0:44:36.000 --> 0:44:41.040 first spiritualistic newspaper published in the US. His ghost supposedly 0:44:41.080 --> 0:44:44.360 made an appearance at a seance, okay, and he popped 0:44:44.400 --> 0:44:46.000 in to defend Maggie. 0:44:49.280 --> 0:44:53.200 Spiritualism. He's at a paper founder shows up at a seance, 0:44:53.200 --> 0:44:55.440 his ghost to say that spiritualism is a fraud. 0:44:55.680 --> 0:44:57.800 No, no, no, yeah yeah yeah. 0:44:57.520 --> 0:44:59.680 Right, so yeah, I wonder as sure I got that right? 0:45:00.239 --> 0:45:01.360 So no, he's said Maggie. 0:45:02.600 --> 0:45:03.960 No, he said she's authentic. 0:45:04.560 --> 0:45:08.880 Oh, he's saying she's she's wrong, she's wrong. So okay, 0:45:08.920 --> 0:45:10.520 it would have been better if he shout out. 0:45:10.400 --> 0:45:13.759 To say that his spirit is crackrec and they're like, oh, 0:45:13.800 --> 0:45:16.520 he's saying that Maggie doesn't know what she's talking about. 0:45:16.560 --> 0:45:18.520 This is what he said. Quote the band of spirits 0:45:18.560 --> 0:45:21.239 attending during the early part of her career had been 0:45:21.360 --> 0:45:25.160 usurped by other unseen intelligences who are not scrupulous in 0:45:25.200 --> 0:45:26.600 their dealings with humanity. 0:45:26.920 --> 0:45:29.040 Oh so the first one's are real. Everything else after. 0:45:28.880 --> 0:45:30.640 That, that's a long ghost message. 0:45:30.640 --> 0:45:32.400 That's a long that's a lot of tapping and cracking. 0:45:32.440 --> 0:45:34.759 It's a lot of backwards right. And other members of 0:45:34.760 --> 0:45:38.160 the spiritualist movement saw Maggie's declaration as a mercenary move 0:45:38.960 --> 0:45:41.240 They thought, well, she's failed as a professional medium. 0:45:41.840 --> 0:45:43.879 Now she's the one. Well, now she's going to. 0:45:43.800 --> 0:45:46.320 Get authority as a detractor. And a lot of people 0:45:46.320 --> 0:45:48.880 thought that the fifteen hundred dollars check she got for 0:45:48.960 --> 0:45:50.920 that interview just went right to the drink. 0:45:51.880 --> 0:45:53.120 She just drink herself. 0:45:53.160 --> 0:45:55.120 So they have opinions, Well, she started going by the 0:45:55.160 --> 0:45:58.360 pseudonym missus Spencer, and she began to reveal tricks of 0:45:58.400 --> 0:46:02.120 the trade. Mediums would use their teeth or feet to 0:46:02.120 --> 0:46:05.439 write messages on those blank cards. How are you using 0:46:05.480 --> 0:46:08.200 your teeth? Maybe in prints, I guess, hiding under the table. 0:46:08.600 --> 0:46:09.040 I don't know. 0:46:09.640 --> 0:46:11.360 I suppose if the room's dark enough, like you can 0:46:11.400 --> 0:46:15.760 get away with all sorts of stuff. A year later, 0:46:16.360 --> 0:46:17.960 Maggie recanted her confession. 0:46:18.280 --> 0:46:20.200 Wait a minute, Mags, and she said. 0:46:20.040 --> 0:46:21.480 The spirits told her to do it. 0:46:22.000 --> 0:46:24.400 Wait, so the spirits told her to say that it's 0:46:24.440 --> 0:46:26.080 all bunked. And then she came back a year later 0:46:26.120 --> 0:46:27.920 and said, the spirits changed her mind. I gotta be 0:46:27.920 --> 0:46:30.080 truthful of y'all made to it. 0:46:30.120 --> 0:46:33.680 She torpedoed her only source of ind But come on 0:46:34.120 --> 0:46:37.120 back in the game, she went. The sisters never reconciled. 0:46:37.160 --> 0:46:37.680 I bet not. 0:46:37.920 --> 0:46:39.880 Leah passed away in eighteen ninety. 0:46:40.000 --> 0:46:43.320 She's like the WWE wrestler breaks a character and script. 0:46:43.360 --> 0:46:45.319 They can't let her back in like you're out. 0:46:45.760 --> 0:46:50.560 Kate died two years later, eighteen ninety two, mid drinking binge. Oh, 0:46:50.600 --> 0:46:53.640 and then eight months after that, Maggie died. The year 0:46:53.719 --> 0:46:58.480 Maggie died, Spiritualist formed the National Spiritualist Association, which is 0:46:58.560 --> 0:47:02.040 known today as the nationals Spiritualist Association of Churches. 0:47:02.120 --> 0:47:02.840 It's still around. 0:47:03.000 --> 0:47:06.319 Sure is nineteen oh four, a group of children were 0:47:06.320 --> 0:47:10.080 playing in that haunted Fox family farmhouse. They found the 0:47:10.080 --> 0:47:12.960 majority of a skeleton, which I feel would be traumatic, 0:47:13.480 --> 0:47:16.600 and this led to a brief probably resurgence in believing 0:47:16.600 --> 0:47:20.160 that the Fox sisters were right along. Yeah. However, a 0:47:20.200 --> 0:47:22.319 doctor examined the bones and it turns out they were 0:47:22.400 --> 0:47:29.200 chicken bones, most likely planted as a joke. There did 0:47:29.239 --> 0:47:33.399 they do? Like an oline them a little bit? There 0:47:33.440 --> 0:47:35.000 are at least ten books. 0:47:35.360 --> 0:47:37.720 Chick he was a very short mass. 0:47:39.560 --> 0:47:42.040 There are ten books, at least ten books about them. Sure, 0:47:42.120 --> 0:47:45.759 multiple websites. Weirdly, no movie seems ripe for. 0:47:45.680 --> 0:47:47.200 It, right, Yeah, I can totally do that. 0:47:47.280 --> 0:47:49.360 You just get one actress who can crack them knuckles. 0:47:49.480 --> 0:47:52.000 Yeah, and Sophia Coppola. 0:47:52.280 --> 0:47:54.400 Hit film perfect. What's your ridiculous takeaway? 0:47:54.800 --> 0:47:59.440 Oh, my ridiculous takeaway. I mean that the older sister 0:48:00.360 --> 0:48:03.279 I would like to know more about her because of like, 0:48:04.320 --> 0:48:06.759 she doesn't have these younger sisters, like they're not as 0:48:06.960 --> 0:48:09.000 obviously the younger sisters seem a little tighter, right, and 0:48:09.040 --> 0:48:11.600 then she comes along and you guys got this thing going, Oh, 0:48:11.680 --> 0:48:13.920 let's go exploit that. Then she exploits it. Then she 0:48:14.040 --> 0:48:17.600 like basically flips. So it feels like it's not even 0:48:17.640 --> 0:48:19.880 I guess it's that ridiculous. It's just sad is that 0:48:20.000 --> 0:48:23.280 she's like the worst sister because like she's like envious, 0:48:23.360 --> 0:48:25.600 not of what her younger sister's like, like, oh, they 0:48:25.600 --> 0:48:27.719 live so free, but it's like she sees them like 0:48:27.760 --> 0:48:30.319 the way that parents often see children's like, oh, you guys, 0:48:30.320 --> 0:48:32.720 guys got something going. Let me make some money off balls. 0:48:32.760 --> 0:48:33.680 And she's the stage. 0:48:33.800 --> 0:48:36.319 She's an exploiter. Yeah, I want to know more about her. 0:48:36.360 --> 0:48:38.160 Creepy little boy with the glowing eyes. 0:48:38.200 --> 0:48:41.120 Ferd Man, that's my jam right there, dude, Like how 0:48:41.120 --> 0:48:42.160 did they pull that off? 0:48:42.320 --> 0:48:44.040 I don't know, and how and how. 0:48:44.000 --> 0:48:45.680 Much did those eyes really go? I mean obviously they 0:48:45.680 --> 0:48:48.120 weren't shooting beans out, but I mean, like, what were 0:48:48.120 --> 0:48:50.360 they doing? Well, if you want to get technical, if 0:48:50.400 --> 0:48:52.160 you're bouncing light photons and yes. 0:48:52.040 --> 0:48:56.480 You're gonna be talking about Yeah, maybe that's all I 0:48:56.520 --> 0:48:56.919 have though. 0:48:57.040 --> 0:48:57.479 That's good. 0:48:57.920 --> 0:49:00.040 You can find us online at Ridiculous Crime to Do 0:49:00.719 --> 0:49:03.560 we have all sorts of fun stuff happening over there, 0:49:03.760 --> 0:49:06.759 a lot of dogs and sunglasses. We're also on Ridiculous 0:49:06.760 --> 0:49:09.200 Crime at both Twitter and Instagram. You can email us 0:49:09.239 --> 0:49:13.200 ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com, leave us a talkback 0:49:13.320 --> 0:49:16.640 on the iHeart app. Just reach out and tune in 0:49:16.680 --> 0:49:24.520 next time. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and 0:49:24.640 --> 0:49:27.880 Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Medium to the Stars 0:49:27.960 --> 0:49:31.480 Dave Cousten. Research is by Ghostly spector Marissa Brown and 0:49:31.560 --> 0:49:35.080 renowned psychic Andrea Song Sharpened Tear. The theme song is 0:49:35.120 --> 0:49:39.640 by Anxious Seance attendees Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Executive 0:49:39.640 --> 0:49:42.320 producers are the Ghosts of Ben Bowen and Will Brown. 0:49:47.040 --> 0:49:52.400 Dus Clime Say It One More Time cry. 0:49:53.520 --> 0:49:56.880 Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts 0:49:56.920 --> 0:50:00.040 to my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:50:00.120 --> 0:50:01.960 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.