Speaker 1: Ridiculous crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Sarah Burnett.
Speaker 3: You can't prove that, Elizabeth, Elizabeth back again? Are you doing?
Speaker 2: I'm good? How are you?
Speaker 3: You know I've been good. I've been fair to Midland.
Speaker 3: How about you? You look nice?
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you?
Speaker 3: I like that. What is that? A turtle on your
Speaker 3: wear on your head?
Speaker 2: It's nice turtle turtle underwear on my head.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's good. Yep, good. Look you know that's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: I do sperm whales. Okay, No, no, like Elizabeth, I
Speaker 3: don't mean. It's more to it than just the words
Speaker 3: sperm whale. It's the sound, not of the words sperm whale.
Speaker 3: It's the sound of the whales.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Like, Okay, if you were underwater, like thirty or say
Speaker 3: thirty feet underwater right in the ocean, you could hear
Speaker 3: sperm whales singing and it would sound like they were screaming.
Speaker 3: Really yeah, because apparently, hands down, the sperm whale is
Speaker 3: the loudest animal on Earth. Like I was looking into it.
Speaker 3: A sperm whale sings at two hundred and thirty decibels.
Speaker 3: What yeah, now, for comparison's sake, an ambulance. Sorry, Okay,
Speaker 3: jackhammer that's like one hundred and thirty decibels. Fireworks gunshots
Speaker 3: that's like one hundred and forty decibels. A jet screaming
Speaker 3: as it takes off, tearing the air, it's one hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty decibels. Meanwhile, there's sperm whale screaming death metal
Speaker 3: into the ocean at two hundred and thirty decibels.
Speaker 2: It's thirty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, did don't you know? Everyonder? Like the other whales
Speaker 3: and dolphins are like, damn son, I'm swimming right here,
Speaker 3: right here, man, come on, now.
Speaker 2: They have voice I modulation, they have that rare condition.
Speaker 3: I am a sperm whale. There's something I could know
Speaker 3: about this. That's horrible, crazy, Like why do they need
Speaker 3: to be so loud? Oh? All the heather whales are like, man, come,
Speaker 3: let's go to the tropics, man. Sperm whales just got here.
Speaker 2: That's ridiculous, right, that is very ridiculous. Do you know
Speaker 2: what else is ridiculous?
Speaker 3: No, I'm here for it though.
Speaker 2: Conning people by cracking your knuckles. Ooh, this is ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Crime A pod cast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists
Speaker 2: and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and
Speaker 2: one hundred percent ridiculous. You damn right, I'm crazy, Zarin,
Speaker 2: Crazy like a fox.
Speaker 3: Oh that's why I can see your tail wagon.
Speaker 2: Crazy like a fox, sister. What I'll explain myself later.
Speaker 2: So first I want to take you on a little
Speaker 2: trip down memory lane.
Speaker 3: Oh, I love one of my favorite lanes.
Speaker 2: Do you remember when we first started doing this show?
Speaker 3: Okay, kind of, Yeah, totally, and you remember there? I
Speaker 3: was there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you remember. We did did a bunch of episodes, yeah, totally. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and we did one about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle aka
Speaker 2: Conan the Barbarian.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, going hard against Udini and spiritualism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, do you remember that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally. I think I told it.
Speaker 2: We were so young back then. Yes, any Who's Spiritualism
Speaker 2: For those who haven't listened to the earlier episode or
Speaker 2: those like me with broken brain memory issues, Spiritualism is
Speaker 2: the nineteenth century movement that claimed that awareness exists even
Speaker 2: after death and that it's possible for there to be
Speaker 2: contact between the living and the dead.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It was like the eighteen hundreds version of I'm
Speaker 3: a psychic. I can talk to the dead, but they
Speaker 3: have like a whole different like language for it. M
Speaker 3: and we basically get the spirit mediums is like the
Speaker 3: crossover point. The clairvoyant is.
Speaker 2: A crossover Sorry, I had to take a sip of
Speaker 2: water there everybody anyway, Yes, and there are people who
Speaker 2: believe this today in varying.
Speaker 3: Degrees to varying degrees and invarying languages.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we see it in a bit of a
Speaker 2: different light now today most people see seances as tricks
Speaker 2: and cons. Yes, no offense to people who are into them.
Speaker 3: When there's a crystal ball and smoke rock on.
Speaker 2: If you're into that. But whatever, most people think seers
Speaker 2: who can talk to the dead are full of it,
Speaker 2: unless you're poll Walnuts.
Speaker 3: Hey, I'm dragging souls over here.
Speaker 2: That's that's the episode of The Sopranos where poll Walnuts
Speaker 2: goes and visits a medium and is completely in a
Speaker 2: packed room of people. He's killed.
Speaker 3: It's amazing to talk through the medium. She's like, take
Speaker 3: your time.
Speaker 2: So you have like a made man killer. Yes, with
Speaker 2: all these ghosts falling him around.
Speaker 3: Everywhere he's going, he's got solid dragon soul.
Speaker 2: But in the eighteen hundreds, spiritualism wasn't like a roadside
Speaker 2: carneia attraction for Rubes.
Speaker 3: Now the president's wife was into it.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and Americans were quick to adopt it as
Speaker 2: a way to reject Calvinist doctrine of predestination. It gave
Speaker 2: them control over their own salvation, and they could communicate
Speaker 2: directly with spirits who had already passed on, who could
Speaker 2: kind of tell them how to Yeah, how are you
Speaker 2: going to live your life? How are you going to
Speaker 2: save your soul?
Speaker 3: Health troubled moments.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was seen as a way to merge the
Speaker 2: unknowable aspects of human existence with the technology that was
Speaker 2: just progressing by leaps and bounds. So not technology like
Speaker 2: we mean today. I'm talking like industrial automation and the tellergram.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I used to tell my students that the stapler was
Speaker 2: once technology, and they just kept ignoring me.
Speaker 3: Anyway, Do you ever tell him like the pencil us too,
Speaker 3: and you get that far back it.
Speaker 2: Really at one point. Yes, there was also at this
Speaker 2: time fascination with the East and Orientalism.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, when they were japanning every.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there was a sense of mystery applied to
Speaker 2: the culture of East Asia that intoxicated people.
Speaker 3: All they knew it just opened up. I mean after
Speaker 3: the Civil War is basically you have Japan opening up
Speaker 3: and then China.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and all they knew of these places were the
Speaker 2: caricatures that were pedaled to them by European tastemakers. So
Speaker 2: a part of that vibe that they were sold was
Speaker 2: that the mysteries of the East involved fortune tellers, mystics.
Speaker 2: People were immigrating over oceans in numbers never seen before
Speaker 2: thanks to transportation technology. Everything was new and changing and
Speaker 2: exciting and scary powered. Yeah, don't you think that the
Speaker 2: rise in astrology interest today has some connection to the
Speaker 2: whiplash speed of technological advancement we're living in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all the unknowables make people yearn for the noble,
Speaker 3: and then they go, I'll take this person who just
Speaker 3: says I can tell you the fuge well.
Speaker 2: And we're spinning out here on Earth while the heavens
Speaker 2: stay the same and keep scores. Kind of what works
Speaker 2: for people, I guess.
Speaker 3: And also it's interpretive. It's kind of like the tarot,
Speaker 3: Like both astrology and the taro allow you to do
Speaker 3: the interpretation. So yeah, you're subconscious just finding a way
Speaker 3: to bubble up. So I think a lot of people
Speaker 3: figured that out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, who knows. And it wasn't just the technological
Speaker 2: advancement of the time. There's also scientific discovery times. Yes,
Speaker 2: so like germ theory was established at this time eighteen
Speaker 2: thirty nine, mid eighteen eighteen fifty eighteen sixty, the periodic
Speaker 2: table of elements was constructed. Oh, incredible things were done
Speaker 2: with electricities eron.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, my man Tesla.
Speaker 2: Science was changing everything.
Speaker 3: I gotta tell you a story about him sometimes.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm scared. Spiritualists saw themselves as a part of that,
Speaker 2: as a part of this science that was changing the world.
Speaker 2: They thought they were using science to prove the existence
Speaker 2: of not only God, but the afterlife. Think about it.
Speaker 2: For people learning about these new machines and concepts, none
Speaker 2: of that made any more sense in being able to
Speaker 2: talk to the dead.
Speaker 3: Oh, if you suddenly have the gas powered lights, that's
Speaker 3: a miracle. And then you get into electricity. Now you've
Speaker 3: got things arcing and sparkan and you don't even know
Speaker 3: what's going on.
Speaker 2: So in the telegraph you can send these messages across
Speaker 2: turn Yeah, so why not why not say, yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: this cool new stuff is happening, why not throw in
Speaker 2: spectral community.
Speaker 3: Also, we can talk to the dead.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, why not? Well, there are the true believers,
Speaker 2: those willing and ready to take advantage of true believers,
Speaker 2: you know, so enter con artists. They gain the confidence
Speaker 2: of an audience hungry for a connection to the next world.
Speaker 2: Who wouldn't want to talk to someone who's.
Speaker 3: Past unless they're family? I'm kidding, but yes, so like,
Speaker 3: who wouldn't.
Speaker 2: Want to at least know that the person or in
Speaker 2: my case dogs or dog.
Speaker 3: Or dogs dogs, multiple dogs, all of the dogs.
Speaker 2: Know, who wouldn't want to know that? You know, this
Speaker 2: person that you loved is happy and can like watch
Speaker 2: over you and stay with you.
Speaker 3: Oh, if you could talk and send a message over
Speaker 3: the Rainbow Bridge, I know you would be Yes.
Speaker 2: And everyone's lost someone, you know, even if it's like
Speaker 2: an ancestor that you never got to meet, and you
Speaker 2: want to talk too. You know, I got great great
Speaker 2: grandmas I never met. I'd love to talk to anyway.
Speaker 2: Our human hunger for that connection is what leaves us open. Yes,
Speaker 2: when you're hungry, you'll eat almost.
Speaker 3: Anything good point, Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: In the rise of spiritualism came con artists who thought
Speaker 2: of really clever ways, sometimes using that new science and
Speaker 2: technology to dupe people into believing that they were a
Speaker 2: conduit to the afterlife, and they would connect you for
Speaker 2: a price, always for a price. I got a few
Speaker 2: of these jokers here for you today.
Speaker 3: Nice.
Speaker 2: Let me just say that I can get a little
Speaker 2: wu wu. Oh yeah, I'm not casting judgment. I think
Speaker 2: you can get Yeah, you can.
Speaker 3: Get believes all the time ghosts.
Speaker 2: So I got three sassy gals who swam in the
Speaker 2: wu wu. The Fox sisters.
Speaker 3: Okay, you promised the Fox I did.
Speaker 2: Leah was born in April eighth, eighteen thirteen. Margaretta was
Speaker 2: born October seventh, eighteen thirty three, wow, twenty years later,
Speaker 2: and Catherine was born March twenty seventh, eighteen thirty seven.
Speaker 2: So there's a huge gap between Leah and the two sisters.
Speaker 2: When Catherine was eleven and Margretta was fourteen, so this
Speaker 2: is eighteen forty eight.
Speaker 3: She practically raised her sisters.
Speaker 2: Well, no, I mean they had parents, I.
Speaker 3: Know, but I mean, you know, it isn't you're an
Speaker 3: older sibling if you're that much older.
Speaker 2: I'm yes, just like a kind of like yeah, So
Speaker 2: eighteen forty eight. They're living with their parents, John and
Speaker 2: Margaret Fox in Hydesville, New York. So, Hydesville is basically
Speaker 2: an intersection about thirty miles east of Rochester. The oldest sister, Leah,
Speaker 2: she lived in Rochester and was married. Her married name
Speaker 2: was Leah Foxfish, Leah Fox Fish, Badger, raccoon, dear stray cat.
Speaker 2: She just picked what she saw to window. So anyway, Hydesville.
Speaker 2: All that's there now is a historical marker and a
Speaker 2: one room house with a display about the Fox sisters
Speaker 2: in it.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, the.
Speaker 2: Display looks like an elementary school science fair. Oh yes,
Speaker 2: it's like it's got those three panel poster board things,
Speaker 2: and there are portraits drawn in what looks like cran
Speaker 2: I'm not kidding. And there's a dollhouse replica.
Speaker 3: There's a third grade science fair.
Speaker 2: It exactly looks like that.
Speaker 3: How do I know this?
Speaker 2: Did I fly to upstate New York for the day?
Speaker 3: I imagining a Google tour? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Go yes, Google Earth.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 2: So the marker out on the lush grass that runs
Speaker 2: along Hydesville Road reads the Fox Sisters. That's in all caps. Well,
Speaker 2: the whole thing's in all caps. But I just like
Speaker 2: the Fox sisters on this site. Events of March thirty first,
Speaker 2: eighteen forty eight began. Sisters Maggie and Kate Fox's central
Speaker 2: role in the origin of modern spiritualism. Oh wow, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's pretty presumptuous using their nicknames, right.
Speaker 3: You know, maybe maybe they preferred that.
Speaker 2: As I was saying, the family, well, the mom, dad,
Speaker 2: and the two youngest girls. They lived in Hydesville in
Speaker 2: eighteen forty eight. It's about to go down, Saron, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: they lived in a farmhouse, right, and legend had it
Speaker 2: at that time. Yeah, the farmhouse was haunted. Oh, March
Speaker 2: thirty first, eighteen forty eight, that was the ghost.
Speaker 3: I knew it, right, I know, yeah? You know me,
Speaker 3: I'm like, that's a ghost.
Speaker 2: Eighteen forty eight, March thirty first, April Fool's Eve.
Speaker 3: Oh is that important? Back then?
Speaker 2: Here I go on, Maggie and Kate, what the heck?
Speaker 2: I'll act like I'm familiar with him too. Maggie and
Speaker 2: Kate they ran to a neighbor's house and they said,
Speaker 2: we hear weird noises in our house. All right, creepy girls.
Speaker 2: It's like, in fact, we hear these noises every night
Speaker 2: before we get out of bed.
Speaker 3: Weird pre Victorian children.
Speaker 2: Why are you telling us this? They told him that
Speaker 2: they were pretty sure their place was haunted and that
Speaker 2: there was like a ghostly entity trying to communicate with them.
Speaker 2: The neighbor thinks the girls are full of it. I
Speaker 2: with the neighbor, like, why are you telling me this?
Speaker 3: Go home, Mags, you got to go.
Speaker 2: But then he's like, Can'm going to go over and
Speaker 2: check it out?
Speaker 3: He's bored, There's not a whole lot to do. He's like,
Speaker 3: the candle's almost out, and here I get it.
Speaker 2: Because if it's real, he's witnessed an honest to goodness haunting.
Speaker 3: That's true.
Speaker 2: If it's bogus, he has plenty to talk about Over
Speaker 2: a barrel of nails at the general store.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he's got the best story of the season.
Speaker 2: Those creepy little fox sisters came over and I'll tell
Speaker 2: you what it was so weird and what he calls
Speaker 2: the fox sisters the vixens? Do you think the guy
Speaker 2: he came over it was over. Maggie and Kate jumped
Speaker 2: into bed. Their mom was standing in the room.
Speaker 3: So wait, wait, so these two teenage girls bring a
Speaker 3: strange man. Back to the neighbor. Back to the house.
Speaker 3: They hop in bad. The mom's standing there and what
Speaker 3: are you doing here?
Speaker 2: You know? The mom's like, well, go ahead, girls, So
Speaker 2: she says out loud, now count five, and there's a pause,
Speaker 2: and then everyone in the room hears five knocks, seemingly
Speaker 2: coming from nowhere and everywhere, all at once. So they hear.
Speaker 3: Five knocks, all right, five five.
Speaker 2: So the neighbor looks a little freaked out.
Speaker 3: Right, It was like, alright, what's going on here?
Speaker 2: And he like looks around the room. He's trying to
Speaker 2: figure out what could have produced the noise. The mom
Speaker 2: then says, count to fifteen. I'm not going to knock
Speaker 2: out fifteen.
Speaker 3: You know that's a lot.
Speaker 2: And you know what fifteen knocks?
Speaker 3: Pretend horse counting? Yeah, go on, So mother.
Speaker 2: Fox then she asks the neighbor, hey, buddy, how old
Speaker 2: are you? And he goes thirty three thirty three knocks, okay, okay.
Speaker 2: So by this time the neighbor is like, well spooked, he's.
Speaker 3: He's impressed by numbers. He's very knocking.
Speaker 2: Numbers are knocking. So he asked MoMA Fox and the
Speaker 2: kids like, who is this injured spirit, Who's who's doing this?
Speaker 2: And the girl say, mister split foot, who satan?
Speaker 3: Oh, mister split the cloven host split foot? I got you?
Speaker 2: Now if I'm the neighbor.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm going through the window.
Speaker 2: I just like plug my nose and pout.
Speaker 3: Those two pre Victorian doll baby weird children. But the
Speaker 3: devil's in their room knocking on the floor and their
Speaker 3: mom's cool. But like under they'll good, I'm gonna sell
Speaker 3: my farm. You guys want to buy, because I'm out
Speaker 3: of here.
Speaker 2: He runs right, he takes off, he gets.
Speaker 3: And even if there's no devil, I don't want to
Speaker 3: live next to those people who believe that the devil's there.
Speaker 3: See either way, I don't want it.
Speaker 2: Well, guess who else left?
Speaker 3: The dad? The family?
Speaker 2: The whole family abandoned the house. Okay, go to Would
Speaker 2: you live in a haunted house?
Speaker 3: Depends? Am I like living in the haunted house? That
Speaker 3: like I was the one who discovered it or I
Speaker 3: moved into the haunted house and I was like, oh man,
Speaker 3: this is haunted. Like if I was like in the house, right,
Speaker 3: I was the one who determined it was haunted and
Speaker 3: it wasn't that like Oh, everyone knew. And I've now
Speaker 3: moved into the local haunted house just to see what
Speaker 3: it's like to live in the haunted house. Now I
Speaker 3: ain't doing that.
Speaker 2: Wait, so you wouldn't go if someone said live in
Speaker 2: this house, PS, it's haunted, you'd like never know.
Speaker 3: But if I was in the house and I discovered
Speaker 3: it was haunted, hell, I might just, you know, keep
Speaker 3: it up, because I was like, well, maybe the ghost
Speaker 3: got something to say. It would have to get to
Speaker 3: the point that the ghost wanted me out. Then I'd
Speaker 3: be like, Okay, I'm out. Yeah, okay, fair right, that's rational.
Speaker 3: We're talking ghosts.
Speaker 2: Well, the Fox family had no interest in coexisting with
Speaker 2: a ghost, you see, ration into it, so they abandoned
Speaker 2: the house.
Speaker 3: Poor neighbor gotta sell it though.
Speaker 2: Well, they sent the girls to live with Leah in Rochester.
Speaker 2: And Rochester at the time was a hotbed of religious activity,
Speaker 2: including Millerism, and that's the precursor to the Seventh day Adventist.
Speaker 3: Oh, I didn't know Millerism.
Speaker 2: Well, not a lot of people do, there, I didn't
Speaker 2: until I looked this up. Word about the spooky Fox
Speaker 2: sisters spread, as well as rumors about the farmhouse.
Speaker 3: So that one's got a big mouth.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he told everybody.
Speaker 3: He went right to the.
Speaker 4: Everybody.
Speaker 2: Yeah he's and then you start talking. One of the
Speaker 2: rumors was that a pedlar, like a little salesman guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, guy shows up with a bag of stuff and
Speaker 3: unfolded on your porch. Is that you do you like
Speaker 3: to it's a dented pan.
Speaker 2: That the pedlar had been murdered in the house five
Speaker 2: years prior.
Speaker 3: So, so it's the ghost of the pedlar.
Speaker 2: Yes, enter Amy and Isaac Post. All right, let's take
Speaker 2: a break and we come back. We'll learn more about
Speaker 2: this gruesome teosom. Hello, hey, Elizabeth Dett what you're doing girl,
Speaker 2: I'm welcoming the spirits. Hello, welcome fox sisters. They communicated
Speaker 2: with the spirit.
Speaker 3: I'm still looking around. I'm like, look, Wayne, I.
Speaker 2: Can be able to see him. Oh okay, let to
Speaker 2: start a knocking rumor of a man murdered in a farmhouse. Pedlar, Yeah, pedlar,
Speaker 2: he's on bicycle. Amy and Isaac Post they got wind
Speaker 2: of this. Who are Amy and Isaac Post, niece.
Speaker 3: And nephew of Emily Posts, Miss Manners.
Speaker 2: Yes, they were Hicksite Quakers.
Speaker 3: I was close so close up in Rochester Hicksite Quakers.
Speaker 2: That meant that they were Quakers who followed the teachings
Speaker 2: of Elias Hicks.
Speaker 3: Ah, so splinter Quakersah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Elias Hicks didn't believe in original sin or the Trinity,
Speaker 2: or predestination or an external devil.
Speaker 3: Okay, sections this is lazy about starting his own religion.
Speaker 2: So he's a Quaker. He splits with the rest of
Speaker 2: the friends and his followers became known as Hicksite Quakers.
Speaker 3: The Posts.
Speaker 2: They were abolitionists, and they worked for women's rights. They
Speaker 2: created an interfaith anti slavery group. And Amy was at
Speaker 2: the Seneca Falls Convention in eighteen forty eight.
Speaker 3: Oh so the beginning of feminism. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And they were also early adopters of spiritualism.
Speaker 3: All the is a lot of meeting right there. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So Isaac and Amy they got all head up about
Speaker 2: the story of the guy being murdered in the Fox
Speaker 2: house five years ago.
Speaker 3: Did the neighbor remember this person being with any confirmation?
Speaker 2: No, I don't know if he started it or if.
Speaker 3: It just where this rumor started.
Speaker 2: Well, it's like where most rumors, You don't know where
Speaker 2: it begins.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was just wondering.
Speaker 2: Well, like any good paranormal investigators, they formed a group
Speaker 2: to go and check out the basement of the spooky house.
Speaker 3: Good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as you do. Unlike most paranormal investigators who only
Speaker 2: find dust flares on their film posing as spirit orbs. Yes,
Speaker 2: these guys found stuff, bone, fragments, hair.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: No word on whether these were human or animal, but
Speaker 2: it honestly doesn't matter. Everyone was positive that the quote
Speaker 2: injured spirit was trying to communicate, so the Posts invited
Speaker 2: the Fox sisters to their house to see if the
Speaker 2: girls could continue communicating with spirits from another locale. Like
Speaker 2: is it just the house or is it you?
Speaker 3: Scientific?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So scientific?
Speaker 2: This was what Isaac Post had to say. Quote, I
Speaker 2: suppose I went with as much unbelief as Thomas felt
Speaker 2: when he was introduced to Jesus after he had ascended,
Speaker 2: But he changed his mind by quote very distinct thumps
Speaker 2: under the floor and several apparent answers. Well, he should
Speaker 2: have stated, not doubting Thomas.
Speaker 3: I'm wondering, like, how hard is it to look under
Speaker 3: the floor.
Speaker 2: That's the thing they you'll see, Okay, that knocking sound
Speaker 2: wasn't under the floor, It was their cracking joints what
Speaker 2: Kate and Maggie confessed to their older sister Leah that
Speaker 2: they'd figured out how to crack the knuckles in their
Speaker 2: toes in a way that made movement almost impossible to detect.
Speaker 3: Oh but this, oh thirty three times.
Speaker 2: That's my question. You're running out of joints, girls, Like,
Speaker 2: how is that happening?
Speaker 3: I can crack my knuckles. But between the two.
Speaker 2: Of them, you know, but still, and they're saying, it's
Speaker 2: just their toes, So maybe it's over. Maybe they've got
Speaker 2: like a loose I've have like a.
Speaker 3: Thumb sock where you can pop it over and over again.
Speaker 2: But that's what they're doing. So they did this with
Speaker 2: their feet resting on a wooden stool, okay, and like
Speaker 2: sometimes or on the floor. So there's nothing that anyone
Speaker 2: can see.
Speaker 3: But it's loud enough. It sounds like it's everywhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the amplification of the cracking joint made the
Speaker 2: noise sound really like you said, it's everywhere, it's otherworldly.
Speaker 3: Was just bouncing around off the floorboards.
Speaker 2: And everything else, and you can't point to one specific
Speaker 2: thing that's making the noise. So with this knowledge, Leah
Speaker 2: was like, count me in. I can crack my knuckles too.
Speaker 2: Let's do this. So she convinced Isaac that she was
Speaker 2: communicating with his recently deceased daughter. Oh ethical o, she's
Speaker 2: all crack Oh, she says, hey, that's really terrible. So
Speaker 2: the Posts are believers after that, of course, of course
Speaker 2: they're hungry.
Speaker 3: They want to eat, they want to talk to their Wow.
Speaker 2: So they rented the Corinthian Hall, which was the largest
Speaker 2: assembly hall in Rochester, and they promoted this wonder and
Speaker 2: four hundred people showed up. This was the first demonstration
Speaker 2: of spiritualism to a paying public. Oh wow, emphasis on
Speaker 2: the paying. So after the demonstration was over, I mean,
Speaker 2: because that's the thing, like, if they were just honestly
Speaker 2: talking to the dead, why not just do it in
Speaker 2: a public space. Why do you have to charge people?
Speaker 3: Spiritualist got to eat too.
Speaker 2: We'll do it for the good their kids. I don't
Speaker 2: make their parents get jobs.
Speaker 3: I'm not the best capitalist, Elizabeth, all right, I can't
Speaker 3: decide why they should be paid.
Speaker 2: So after their little show, Amy Post took the sisters backstage.
Speaker 2: They went into a private room. She had them stripped down. Okay,
Speaker 2: she said, I don't know what I'm saying. She had
Speaker 2: a stripped down But there were a bunch of people there.
Speaker 3: There was a group of skeptics. Okay, you're going to
Speaker 3: keep doing that.
Speaker 2: I don't even know what song I'm trying to do.
Speaker 2: So the skeptics saw that they don't have any devices
Speaker 2: hit none of theirs.
Speaker 3: Sure, okay, yeah, this is common we have. We saw
Speaker 3: this a bit Houdini and uh what you call out
Speaker 3: your Conan Doyle when they had they got the like strip.
Speaker 2: Well, it's like the coronation of King Charles. Get behind the.
Speaker 3: Screen, we got the Holy Oils. We're gonna rub on. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's always like if you want to brew something. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they play the music because you're taking off your clothes.
Speaker 3: That's my saucy music. I'm going to do the feather
Speaker 3: dance in a second.
Speaker 2: There wasn't any evidence, right.
Speaker 3: Dan to the seven. Yeah, and there's a day.
Speaker 2: They were born.
Speaker 3: No electric devices.
Speaker 2: Here, just two little mediums.
Speaker 3: Well three so yeah, boy.
Speaker 2: Eighteenth century Austrian healer Franz Anton Mesmer, he was a
Speaker 2: popular guy in eighteen forties and marriag.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, I got a story for him for you.
Speaker 2: He said everything in existence in the whole universe is
Speaker 2: controlled bay quote magnetic fluid.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's him, that's Mesmer.
Speaker 2: And what happens if your fluid becomes imbalanced, Well, it's
Speaker 2: going to make you sick.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you probably need leeches or probably some cocaine.
Speaker 2: How can you be cured? You got to get balanced,
Speaker 2: and how did you get balanced? Mesmer has the answer?
Speaker 3: What's the answer?
Speaker 2: He said that he could restore the balance by waving
Speaker 2: his hands over a person's body and this would cause
Speaker 2: a mesmerized hypnotic state, that's the word. And when the
Speaker 2: person was mesmerized, he could fiddle with the magnetic force
Speaker 2: and boom. Healthy. Dude.
Speaker 3: If I had a better name, that'd be my goal
Speaker 3: to have my name be turned down. Yeah, a verb
Speaker 3: or an adjective, so you like, run your nesk. I'd
Speaker 3: be cool with mesmerize, I mean martinized. There's something anyway,
Speaker 3: but Burnetti's.
Speaker 2: Sarennie maybe sarahize something. Uh. Sometimes when people were under
Speaker 2: his spell, they said they were visited by spirits from
Speaker 2: other dimensions naturally, that's pretty cool. Yeah, you're into that
Speaker 2: sort of thing. Around the time that Mesmer was Mesmerizing,
Speaker 2: the Swedish mystic and philosopher Emmanuel Swedenborg. He was coming
Speaker 2: up too. He believed the afterlife consisted of three heavens,
Speaker 2: three hells, and a middle space where every person went
Speaker 2: after dying Cleveland. So it was like a processing center Cleveland.
Speaker 2: This middle place was supposed to be a lot like
Speaker 2: Earth or cle Cleveland. He said. Selfish folks would end
Speaker 2: up in one of the hells depending on how bad
Speaker 2: they were. Nice, caring people could make it to one
Speaker 2: of the heavens depending on how good they were. He wrote, quote,
Speaker 2: the Lord casts no one into hell, but those who
Speaker 2: are there have deliberately cast themselves into it and keep
Speaker 2: themselves there. He sounds fun, he's super fun, and he
Speaker 2: you know, kind of then gets absorbed into all the
Speaker 2: spiritualism stuff. Nearly a century later, a man named Andrew
Speaker 2: Jackson Davis. He sounds like maybe a Civil War general,
Speaker 2: but he's not.
Speaker 3: Totally or on the wrong side exactly.
Speaker 2: He was known as John the Baptist of modern Spiritualism.
Speaker 2: So he took the chocolate of Mesmer and the peanut
Speaker 2: butter of Swedenborg, and he made a delicious book. He
Speaker 2: communicated with the spirit of Swedenborg through a series of
Speaker 2: mesmeric trances. Okay, and Davis recorded these messages in a
Speaker 2: giant book called The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations
Speaker 2: and a Voice to Mankind. Oh wow, I see that title.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't know what that's books about. I'm
Speaker 2: not reading that.
Speaker 3: So he's like the Edgar Casey before caid you write
Speaker 3: a bestseller.
Speaker 2: Yes, So this is what he had to say. Quote,
Speaker 2: it is a truth that's the spirit's commune with one another.
Speaker 2: While one is in the body and the other in
Speaker 2: the higher spheres. All the world will hail with delight
Speaker 2: the ushering in of that era when the interiors of
Speaker 2: men will be opened and the spiritual communication will be
Speaker 2: established the dead.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it'll be a year later.
Speaker 2: This is what Davis wrote in his diary. I stole
Speaker 2: his diary. I'm gonna tell you what's in there. Quote
Speaker 2: about daylight this morning, A warm breathing passed over my face,
Speaker 2: and I heard a sorry it's addicted.
Speaker 3: I know you can't.
Speaker 2: And I heard a voice, tender and strong, saying, brother,
Speaker 2: the good work has begun. Behold a living demonstration is born.
Speaker 3: That sounds like some ghostbreasters stuff. Okay, So like the.
Speaker 2: Date of the diary entry March thirty first, eighteen forty eight,
Speaker 2: the same day that the Fox sisters displayed their toolence
Speaker 2: to their mother and their neighbor, a great awakening, a
Speaker 2: living demonstration was born.
Speaker 3: Interesting for the set.
Speaker 2: So upon hearing about the sisters, Davis invited them to
Speaker 2: his house in New York to witness their abilities himself.
Speaker 2: And once they wowed and with their wo w, it
Speaker 2: was on. The sisters went on tour. Okay, it was
Speaker 2: I got a bus merch.
Speaker 3: They took the road.
Speaker 2: They booked a suite at Barnum's Hotel, which was owned
Speaker 2: by the cousin of P. T. Barnum, that was on
Speaker 2: the corner of Broadway and Maiden Lane. Sessions were conducted
Speaker 2: in the hotel's parlor for the admission price of a dollar,
Speaker 2: and that was done at ten am, five pm, and
Speaker 2: eight pm. They had three shows a day. They offered.
Speaker 2: You know, if you wanted to, you could book a
Speaker 2: private session. As many as thirty people would be in
Speaker 2: attendance at a time in the in the hotel's parlor.
Speaker 2: Famous people stopped by. We always liked to love them.
Speaker 3: Who are they?
Speaker 2: James Finnimore Cooper, Oh, yes, the writer William Colin Bryant
Speaker 2: so Journer truth Wow Yeah. Journalist and abolitionist William Lloyd
Speaker 2: Garrison was there during a session when a spirit tapped
Speaker 2: out a message quote, spiritualism will work miracles in the
Speaker 2: cause of reform in time to a popular song.
Speaker 3: What was the popular song? I thought, you're going to
Speaker 3: tell me it's her mother's favorite song.
Speaker 2: You know, it's iambic pentameter. Yeah, anything in iambic pentameter.
Speaker 3: Can be that interesting, Leah.
Speaker 2: She stayed in New York and took callers in a
Speaker 2: sance room, and Maggie and Kate continued touring. It wasn't
Speaker 2: always glamorous life on the road, Oh yeah. Maggie seemed
Speaker 2: to be a particular target for people trying to debunk
Speaker 2: the girls. For some reason, they thought she was possessed
Speaker 2: a lot of times interesting. She was almost kidnapped by
Speaker 2: a group of men who were offended by her performance
Speaker 2: while in Troy, New York.
Speaker 3: They were gonna like shake it out of her, I.
Speaker 2: Don't know, put her in a pillowcase and throw her
Speaker 2: in the river.
Speaker 3: I don't know, bag of kittens.
Speaker 2: Who knows? Yeah, exactly. Horace Greeley founder.
Speaker 3: And editor of the Go West young Man The New York.
Speaker 2: Tribune began acting as a chaperone for the sisters.
Speaker 3: Oh, this got.
Speaker 2: Them entry into holding seances for the upper classes. And
Speaker 2: he was a mark and he was a pretty lousy chaperone. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he was really lousy. He let them drink wine. Well,
Speaker 2: you know, it's like little kids get him drunk.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm not thinking that that was a mistake
Speaker 3: on his part.
Speaker 2: He's like a fun mom in the suburbs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what I'm picturing.
Speaker 2: Then wonders why there are so many single car accidents
Speaker 2: around prom anyway, So scandals started to surface. They didn't
Speaker 2: really have any supervision. What started out as a prank
Speaker 2: to mess with their mom and neighbor, what was supposed
Speaker 2: to just be a goof to fend off boredom, was
Speaker 2: now the source of incredible destructive stress for them.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they're about to get in an invitation to
Speaker 3: the White House.
Speaker 2: Totally well, mind you. This was all within a year
Speaker 2: and a half.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: November eighteen forty nine, they gave a performance that ended
Speaker 2: with the visiting spirits tapping out. We will now bid
Speaker 2: you farewell because they're like, let's just stop.
Speaker 3: This other knuckle o feet just swollen.
Speaker 2: How are they talking?
Speaker 3: And I imagine this is Morse code or unless they
Speaker 3: established some like you know code on the on the floor,
Speaker 3: like one is a two is bag.
Speaker 2: I feel like in Star Wars when someone can talk
Speaker 2: to one of the droids who's just beeping because they
Speaker 2: have someone who's like, oh yeah, they said, now bid
Speaker 2: you farewell. That's what they said.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been I've been to all the shows.
Speaker 2: So they make that farewell message and for two weeks
Speaker 2: there are no spiritual visitations. But Leah wanted to get
Speaker 2: that money, so she made.
Speaker 3: Like Gus the oldest one. She got real life problems,
Speaker 3: she made.
Speaker 2: Like a true stage mama, and she just worked through
Speaker 2: the pain. The show must go on, Zaron. So four
Speaker 2: years on.
Speaker 3: The gar letting her way through spiritualism totally.
Speaker 2: Four years on. More and more doubts are being cast
Speaker 2: on their abilities. During a performance four years during a
Speaker 2: performance in Buffalo, New York, pillows were placed beneath the
Speaker 2: feet of the sisters and then that night's performance was
Speaker 2: awfully quiet. Saren hm, No ghosts came and knocking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because they couldn't get the breast off.
Speaker 2: The Yeah, whenever it looked like the sisters would be
Speaker 2: exposed as frauds, Leah would pull up this like stock
Speaker 2: defense card. You guys, the negative, doubtful energy in the
Speaker 2: room is keeping the spirits away her.
Speaker 3: You don't believe it won't happen.
Speaker 2: Only the peer of heart who truly believes can experience
Speaker 2: what my sisters are doing.
Speaker 3: Coincidental Yeah.
Speaker 2: Eighteen fifty one, a relative of the Fox family, missus
Speaker 2: Norman Culver, She signed a confession. She said that she
Speaker 2: had helped the Fox sisters by touching them to indicate
Speaker 2: when the rapping sounds should be made. She said they
Speaker 2: used their knees, ankles, toe joints to make the sounds. Hm,
Speaker 2: I can I can crack pretty much anything, can you.
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Sure, just snap my bones. That's hilarious to me. They're
Speaker 2: just running, running through all the joints.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I got some ricketty joints. But like,
Speaker 3: I don't think I could reliably do three shows a
Speaker 3: day for four years.
Speaker 2: I got to busted up ankle. Yeah, but when when
Speaker 2: I move it a lot of times it'll just yeah.
Speaker 3: No, imagine doing that every day for like you gets
Speaker 3: so swollen. Yeah, and then like when it rains, i'd
Speaker 3: want to cry.
Speaker 2: But I think I could be a medium. I love
Speaker 2: popping my joints.
Speaker 3: Okay, there you go, let's let's get you. I'll be
Speaker 3: your agent.
Speaker 2: Not like you enjoy popping joints. I enjoy popping my joints. Anyway,
Speaker 2: the girls were still on the road. They were still
Speaker 2: practicing that early hustle culture selling vibes. The next stop
Speaker 2: had some unexpected twists. When we come back from this break,
Speaker 2: I will tell you all about.
Speaker 4: Them, Zarin.
Speaker 2: Yes, Elizabeth, it was eighteen fifty two, oh you, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: that's right it was, and Maggie was seventeen. Maggie when
Speaker 2: their travels took them to Philadelphia. It was there that
Speaker 2: she met thirty year old Arctic explorer Elisha kent Kin.
Speaker 3: That's a heck of a name, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Cain was convinced that the sisters.
Speaker 3: Were frauds, got on Elisha.
Speaker 2: He did his best to debunk them.
Speaker 3: However, he fell in love.
Speaker 2: He came up empty. He said, after a whole month's trial,
Speaker 2: I could make nothing of them. Therefore they are a
Speaker 2: great mystery. So if he can't figure it out. It
Speaker 2: must not be able to be sold.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's an Arctic explorer, he can't do it.
Speaker 2: But you're right, he did find love. He and Maggie
Speaker 2: fell in love.
Speaker 3: I was wondering.
Speaker 2: He was thirteen years his junior.
Speaker 3: Okay, how old is she?
Speaker 2: She's what seventeen and he's a thirty year old Arctic explorer.
Speaker 2: He was controlling, but I would say in a good way.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, he convinced her to give up spiritualism
Speaker 2: and go to school.
Speaker 3: Oh that is yeah, I wouldn't call that controlling. That
Speaker 3: rational advice.
Speaker 2: He was genuinely in love with her.
Speaker 3: Yeah, reasonable, I'd like you to become a real person
Speaker 3: and enjoy things.
Speaker 2: Like stop your your spiritualist child star gig.
Speaker 3: Stop cracking your bones for bucks. Baby, he loved her.
Speaker 2: His family did not. Oh they were Philadelphia blue bloods.
Speaker 3: Oh so he's wealthy. That's why he could go Arctic explorers.
Speaker 2: How can you be a thirty year old Arctic explorer
Speaker 2: and like you come out of the.
Speaker 3: Story would either be the one holding the rope or
Speaker 3: you're the one paying for the rope. But yeah, so uh.
Speaker 2: They thought that she was like an ignorant heretic bumpkin. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I bet certainly not good enough for their boy. No, no, no,
Speaker 2: he vowed to marry her anyway, So he's getting ready
Speaker 2: to go on this expedition. Before he left, they had
Speaker 2: a ring exchange ceremony, and the idea was that they
Speaker 2: would have an actual wedding when he got back and
Speaker 2: make it legal. Unfortunately, they never got to walk down
Speaker 2: the aisle because two years later he got sick in
Speaker 2: Cuba and died at the age of thirty six.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 2: His funeral was the largest in American history until Abraham Lincoln's.
Speaker 2: Why a lunar crater Cain was named for him? What
Speaker 2: the waterway between Greenland and northernmost Canadian Islands, previously named
Speaker 2: Peabody Bay was renamed Caan Basin in his honor? What
Speaker 2: did he do be rich his family? You know? I mean,
Speaker 2: I guess he was he did. I shouldn't, I shouldn't
Speaker 2: diminish his So.
Speaker 3: He explored up around the greens.
Speaker 2: He wrote volumes on you know what he saw and
Speaker 2: Arctic geology.
Speaker 3: Explorers are people who are out where nobody is. How
Speaker 3: did he have the largest funeral at such a young
Speaker 3: age when it seems like. Most of his time was
Speaker 3: spent out where nobody was. So was his family like
Speaker 3: super like everyone wanted to go to the boys funeral
Speaker 3: like got for him.
Speaker 2: A lot of it had to do with the family.
Speaker 2: The family was wealthy and influence and they went off,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, and they refused to let Maggie attend this
Speaker 2: mega funeral. They denied their common law marriage and their
Speaker 2: ring ceremony, which meant that she was not in the will.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I guess that part.
Speaker 2: To honor his memory, she granted his wish to convert
Speaker 2: to Catholicism. He was not Catholic. He's be Catholic for me.
Speaker 2: He was a Presbyterian.
Speaker 3: If I could, I'd be Catholic.
Speaker 2: He thought that the iconography and the mysticism of the
Speaker 2: Catholic Church was like right up her Alley's Christian.
Speaker 3: There's there's bleeding gods on the wall. You'll love it.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be great.
Speaker 2: She was broken, though, and she was ashamed at the
Speaker 2: rejection from his family, so she hit the bottle. I mean,
Speaker 2: she's been drinking since she was a little kid.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I imagine at this point.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, and she vowed to quote Holy and Forever
Speaker 2: abandoned spiritualism, so she also got back at his family
Speaker 2: in the best way a criminal knows how.
Speaker 3: Wrote a book.
Speaker 2: It was called The Love Life of Doctor Caine.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 2: Its evolved in.
Speaker 3: Bouncing. Sorry, go on, it's like the rockets.
Speaker 2: Producer said, it's kind of like a morning show Sanford
Speaker 2: and Son. It was a collection of the love letters. Meanwhile, Kate,
Speaker 2: she went the exact opposite way. She married a devout
Speaker 2: spiritualist and they had two kids, and she shot to
Speaker 2: the top of the spooky charts. As a medium, she
Speaker 2: had a trick where she would communicate two messages simultaneously.
Speaker 2: She would write one while saying the other out loud.
Speaker 2: It's like when I'm typing and talking to someone on
Speaker 2: the field at the same time.
Speaker 3: Big whoop.
Speaker 2: I'm in the audience.
Speaker 3: I go big, big whoop. Huh.
Speaker 2: She would also transcribe messages in reverse script.
Speaker 3: So he right backwards.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which, okay, that's a good one. I'll give you
Speaker 2: that one.
Speaker 3: Sure, So you got a memory and you can write backwards.
Speaker 2: She would hold demonstrations where blank cards would like spontaneously
Speaker 2: reveal words that weren't previously there.
Speaker 3: Oh you got some like some lemon.
Speaker 2: That's a good one though. Here's the best though. One
Speaker 2: of her children, Ferdinand, he was also a medium, and
Speaker 2: when he was only three, he would be possessed by spirits.
Speaker 2: That's cool, Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 3: I'd think if you'd like maybe like a caught fire,
Speaker 3: like the human torch, that'd be impressive.
Speaker 2: No hold on, the spirits would communicate through him. And
Speaker 2: how did people know this was happening. He had quote
Speaker 2: an unearthly glow that wouldn't radiate from his eyes.
Speaker 3: There you go, he went dark. Brandon, Now you're talking
Speaker 3: my language.
Speaker 2: Yes, I love it.
Speaker 3: So we want to get into that comic book, realm.
Speaker 3: I'm like, forget spiritualism, give me Cyclops.
Speaker 2: During a session with Charles, the Cyclops of Greek mythology.
Speaker 2: During a session with Charles Livermore, who was a wealthy banker,
Speaker 2: she summoned up his deceased wife and then also the
Speaker 2: spirit of Benjamin Franklin.
Speaker 3: That's a fun one to draw.
Speaker 2: So ben let everyone know that he was in the
Speaker 2: house by writing his name on a blank card. Just
Speaker 2: gave an autograph. Here you go. That's kind of The
Speaker 2: Civil War was big business for Kate. Grieving family members
Speaker 2: they would go to her, I need to commune with
Speaker 2: my lost loved.
Speaker 3: One, my brother, my daughter, my brother, my mother.
Speaker 2: This surgeon popularity meant that spectators they wanted miracles. They're like,
Speaker 2: I need a miracle two fingers up. They wanted it
Speaker 2: every session. I need a miracle every day, is what
Speaker 2: they would say. That took its toll on Kate. Like
Speaker 2: her sister before her, she started drinking heavily.
Speaker 3: It's nineteen hundred, the nineteenth century, eighteen hundred, so that's
Speaker 3: what you did. It was like, look, I don't have
Speaker 3: any good water. I got nothing to do. Let's drink
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 2: Drink, let's drink about it. Things went from bad to
Speaker 2: worse for the sisters. Leah attacked Kate publicly for her
Speaker 2: drinking problem, so she just aired their laundry. She accused
Speaker 2: Kate of being an unfit mother to her two young children.
Speaker 2: They're getting nasty. Kate was humiliated, and Maggie was pissed.
Speaker 2: She did not like this. She was so mad she
Speaker 2: made her own public announcement. She let it leak that
Speaker 2: the Fox sisters quote unquote abilities had been a hoax
Speaker 2: from day one. Oh and then she denounced spiritualism.
Speaker 3: She broke kay feb.
Speaker 2: The New York World paid Maggie fifteen hundred dollars, which
Speaker 2: is a lot of money, then to publish an interview.
Speaker 2: They this would be the lead up to a public
Speaker 2: announcement that she was going to make, and Kate would
Speaker 2: be in the audience to support. In the New York
Speaker 2: World interview, Maggie stated, quote, my sister Katie was the
Speaker 2: first to observe that by swishing her fingers she could
Speaker 2: produce certain noises with her knuckles and joints, and that
Speaker 2: the same effect could be made with the toes. Finding
Speaker 2: that we could make raps with our feet, first with
Speaker 2: one foot and then with both, we practiced until we
Speaker 2: could do this easily when the room was dark. Like
Speaker 2: most perplexing things, when made clear, it is astonishing how
Speaker 2: easily it was done. The wrapping is simply the result
Speaker 2: of perfect control of the muscles of the leg below
Speaker 2: the knee, which govern the tendons of the foot and
Speaker 2: allow the action of the toe and ankle bones that
Speaker 2: are not commonly known. Such perfect control is only possible
Speaker 2: when the child is taken at an early age and
Speaker 2: carefully and continually taught to practice the muscles which grow
Speaker 2: stiffer in later years. This, then, is the simple explanation
Speaker 2: of the whole method of knocks and wraps.
Speaker 3: So looks like making a Chinese gymnast. Yeah, you start
Speaker 3: very We train these bones well.
Speaker 2: And like like when they say that they they would
Speaker 2: make raps with their feet, that they're just like their
Speaker 2: feet are just her holding.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, do a quick sixteen bars. Who's turning?
Speaker 2: The toe just grows the mouth all. Hey, my name
Speaker 2: is Toe, and I'm here to say I got a
Speaker 2: I love spirits in a major way. Zaren close your eyes.
Speaker 2: I want you to picture it. It's October twenty first,
Speaker 2: eighteen eighty eight. You're a young man in New York City,
Speaker 2: working days as an apprentice tailor. You consider yourself a
Speaker 2: curious citizen of the world. Went off the clock. You
Speaker 2: like to get out and about. It's the big apple
Speaker 2: baby city that never sleeps. You're in a crowd at
Speaker 2: the Academy of Music in Manhattan. It's a grand opera
Speaker 2: house by Union Square that has recently started offering vaudeville shows.
Speaker 2: You hear a woman, a mystic was going to give
Speaker 2: a talk or demonstration or something. You bought a ticket
Speaker 2: on a whim, and here you are, as two thousand
Speaker 2: other people crowd into their seats. A piano plays a
Speaker 2: popular tune of the day. When those around you were
Speaker 2: chatting away in excitement, speculating about what might happen on stage,
Speaker 2: the curtain pulls back and a hush falls over the crowd.
Speaker 2: The tinkling of the piano fades away. A slight, dark
Speaker 2: haired woman appears from the wings and makes her way
Speaker 2: to a spotlight in the center of the stage. She
Speaker 2: clears her throat, it's Margaretta Fox, and she's here to
Speaker 2: tell her story.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: When I began this deception, I was too young to
Speaker 2: know right from wrong that I have been mainly instrumental
Speaker 2: in perpetuating the fraud of spiritualism upon a two confiding public.
Speaker 2: Many of you already know. It is the greatest sorrow
Speaker 2: of my life. My sister Katie and myself were very
Speaker 2: young children when this horrible deception began. At night, when
Speaker 2: we went to bed, we used to tie an apple
Speaker 2: on a string and move the string up and down,
Speaker 2: causing the apple to bump on the floor, or we
Speaker 2: would drop the apple on the floor, making a strange
Speaker 2: noise every time it would rebound a great many people
Speaker 2: when they hear the wrapping imagine at once that the
Speaker 2: spirits are touching them. It was a very common delusion.
Speaker 2: Some very wealthy people came to see me some years
Speaker 2: ago when I lived in forty second Street, and I
Speaker 2: did some wrappings for them. I made the spirit wrap
Speaker 2: on the chair and one of the ladies cried out,
Speaker 2: I feel the spirit tapping me on the shoulder. Of course,
Speaker 2: that was pure imagination.
Speaker 3: I like it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So Maggie then went on to show how they
Speaker 2: did this. She just like, you know, showed her ankle
Speaker 2: when we gasped, and then she's like, crack.
Speaker 3: Alac alecs dropped the boss.
Speaker 2: I just want to wrap. She took off her shoe
Speaker 2: and she put it on a wooden stool. And this
Speaker 2: is what the New York Herald reported quote, there stood
Speaker 2: a black robed, sharp faced widow working her big.
Speaker 3: Toe wow and solemnly.
Speaker 2: Declaring that it was in this way she created the
Speaker 2: excitement that has driven so many persons to suicide or insanity.
Speaker 2: One moment it was ludicrous, the next.
Speaker 3: It was weird.
Speaker 2: That one moment it was ludacris, the.
Speaker 3: Next TI was weird journalism. I really told the story.
Speaker 3: I feel like I was I learned everything I needed
Speaker 3: to know the heart.
Speaker 2: Of the matter. Maggie finished up her demonstration by saying
Speaker 2: that Leah knew from the beginning that it was all
Speaker 2: a prank, and that she decided to exploit the situation
Speaker 2: for cash. So at first, the little girls are just like, watch,
Speaker 2: we're going to freak out these people.
Speaker 3: Rememb We're going to freak out the adults like.
Speaker 2: There's some money to be made. She stared at the audience.
Speaker 2: Then she thanked God for being able to expose spiritualism,
Speaker 2: and then walked off the stage. There was now a
Speaker 2: split in the spiritualism movement. Samuel B. Britton he was
Speaker 2: the former publisher of the Spiritual Telegraph, which was the
Speaker 2: first spiritualistic newspaper published in the US. His ghost supposedly
Speaker 2: made an appearance at a seance, okay, and he popped
Speaker 2: in to defend Maggie.
Speaker 3: Spiritualism. He's at a paper founder shows up at a seance,
Speaker 3: his ghost to say that spiritualism is a fraud.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: Right, so yeah, I wonder as sure I got that right?
Speaker 3: So no, he's said Maggie.
Speaker 2: No, he said she's authentic.
Speaker 3: Oh, he's saying she's she's wrong, she's wrong. So okay,
Speaker 3: it would have been better if he shout out.
Speaker 2: To say that his spirit is crackrec and they're like, oh,
Speaker 2: he's saying that Maggie doesn't know what she's talking about.
Speaker 2: This is what he said. Quote the band of spirits
Speaker 2: attending during the early part of her career had been
Speaker 2: usurped by other unseen intelligences who are not scrupulous in
Speaker 2: their dealings with humanity.
Speaker 3: Oh so the first one's are real. Everything else after.
Speaker 2: That, that's a long ghost message.
Speaker 3: That's a long that's a lot of tapping and cracking.
Speaker 2: It's a lot of backwards right. And other members of
Speaker 2: the spiritualist movement saw Maggie's declaration as a mercenary move
Speaker 2: They thought, well, she's failed as a professional medium.
Speaker 3: Now she's the one. Well, now she's going to.
Speaker 2: Get authority as a detractor. And a lot of people
Speaker 2: thought that the fifteen hundred dollars check she got for
Speaker 2: that interview just went right to the drink.
Speaker 3: She just drink herself.
Speaker 2: So they have opinions, Well, she started going by the
Speaker 2: pseudonym missus Spencer, and she began to reveal tricks of
Speaker 2: the trade. Mediums would use their teeth or feet to
Speaker 2: write messages on those blank cards. How are you using
Speaker 2: your teeth? Maybe in prints, I guess, hiding under the table.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I suppose if the room's dark enough, like you can
Speaker 2: get away with all sorts of stuff. A year later,
Speaker 2: Maggie recanted her confession.
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, Mags, and she said.
Speaker 2: The spirits told her to do it.
Speaker 3: Wait, so the spirits told her to say that it's
Speaker 3: all bunked. And then she came back a year later
Speaker 3: and said, the spirits changed her mind. I gotta be
Speaker 3: truthful of y'all made to it.
Speaker 2: She torpedoed her only source of ind But come on
Speaker 2: back in the game, she went. The sisters never reconciled.
Speaker 3: I bet not.
Speaker 2: Leah passed away in eighteen ninety.
Speaker 3: She's like the WWE wrestler breaks a character and script.
Speaker 3: They can't let her back in like you're out.
Speaker 2: Kate died two years later, eighteen ninety two, mid drinking binge. Oh,
Speaker 2: and then eight months after that, Maggie died. The year
Speaker 2: Maggie died, Spiritualist formed the National Spiritualist Association, which is
Speaker 2: known today as the nationals Spiritualist Association of Churches.
Speaker 3: It's still around.
Speaker 2: Sure is nineteen oh four, a group of children were
Speaker 2: playing in that haunted Fox family farmhouse. They found the
Speaker 2: majority of a skeleton, which I feel would be traumatic,
Speaker 2: and this led to a brief probably resurgence in believing
Speaker 2: that the Fox sisters were right along. Yeah. However, a
Speaker 2: doctor examined the bones and it turns out they were
Speaker 2: chicken bones, most likely planted as a joke. There did
Speaker 2: they do? Like an oline them a little bit? There
Speaker 2: are at least ten books.
Speaker 3: Chick he was a very short mass.
Speaker 2: There are ten books, at least ten books about them. Sure,
Speaker 2: multiple websites. Weirdly, no movie seems ripe for.
Speaker 3: It, right, Yeah, I can totally do that.
Speaker 2: You just get one actress who can crack them knuckles.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Sophia Coppola.
Speaker 2: Hit film perfect. What's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3: Oh, my ridiculous takeaway. I mean that the older sister
Speaker 3: I would like to know more about her because of like,
Speaker 3: she doesn't have these younger sisters, like they're not as
Speaker 3: obviously the younger sisters seem a little tighter, right, and
Speaker 3: then she comes along and you guys got this thing going, Oh,
Speaker 3: let's go exploit that. Then she exploits it. Then she
Speaker 3: like basically flips. So it feels like it's not even
Speaker 3: I guess it's that ridiculous. It's just sad is that
Speaker 3: she's like the worst sister because like she's like envious,
Speaker 3: not of what her younger sister's like, like, oh, they
Speaker 3: live so free, but it's like she sees them like
Speaker 3: the way that parents often see children's like, oh, you guys,
Speaker 3: guys got something going. Let me make some money off balls.
Speaker 3: And she's the stage.
Speaker 2: She's an exploiter. Yeah, I want to know more about her.
Speaker 2: Creepy little boy with the glowing eyes.
Speaker 3: Ferd Man, that's my jam right there, dude, Like how
Speaker 3: did they pull that off?
Speaker 2: I don't know, and how and how.
Speaker 3: Much did those eyes really go? I mean obviously they
Speaker 3: weren't shooting beans out, but I mean, like, what were
Speaker 3: they doing? Well, if you want to get technical, if
Speaker 3: you're bouncing light photons and yes.
Speaker 2: You're gonna be talking about Yeah, maybe that's all I
Speaker 2: have though.
Speaker 3: That's good.
Speaker 2: You can find us online at Ridiculous Crime to Do
Speaker 2: we have all sorts of fun stuff happening over there,
Speaker 2: a lot of dogs and sunglasses. We're also on Ridiculous
Speaker 2: Crime at both Twitter and Instagram. You can email us
Speaker 2: ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com, leave us a talkback
Speaker 2: on the iHeart app. Just reach out and tune in
Speaker 2: next time. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and
Speaker 2: Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Medium to the Stars
Speaker 2: Dave Cousten. Research is by Ghostly spector Marissa Brown and
Speaker 2: renowned psychic Andrea Song Sharpened Tear. The theme song is
Speaker 2: by Anxious Seance attendees Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Executive
Speaker 2: producers are the Ghosts of Ben Bowen and Will Brown.
Speaker 3: Dus Clime Say It One More Time cry.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
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