The Death-Blow to Spiritualism: Being the True Story of the Fox Sisters — John Shaqi
The Death-Blow to Spiritualism: Being the True Story of the Fox SistersDavenport, Reuben Briggs
History
The Death-Blow to Spiritualism: Being the True Story of the Fox Sisters
Davenport, Reuben Briggs
Fox, Margaret, 1833-1893; Jencken, Catherine Fox, 1836-1892; Mediums -- New York (State) -- Rochester; Spiritualism
"God bless you, for I think that you now speak the truth. You have my
forgiveness at least, and I believe that thousands of others will
forgive you, for the atonement made in season wipes out much of the
stain of the early sin.
"Yours sincerely,
"ANNA SUZANNE."
To these letters and to hundreds of others which Mrs. Kane and her sister
Mrs. Jencken have received, this volume is their response.
But besides this, they have appeared in public on the platform, as an
earnest of their present sincerity, and will probably continue so to
appear in various parts of this country and Europe.
On the 21st of October, 1888, Mrs. Margaret Fox Kane first fulfilled her
intention of publicly denouncing, with her own lips, Spiritualism and its
attendant trickery. She appeared at the Academy of Music in New York
before a large and distinguished audience, and without reservation
demonstrated the falsity of all that she had done in the past in the guise
of spiritualistic "mediumship."
The ordeal was a severe one. The great nervous strain under which she had
labored rendered her mind highly excitable, and the large number of
spiritualists in the house tried to create a disturbance, or a traitorous
diversion which would break the force of her renunciation. In this they
utterly failed, however, thanks to the superior character of a majority of
her auditors.
The moral effect of the exposure could not have been greater.
Mrs. Kane stood before the footlights trembling with intense feeling, and
made the following most solemn abjuration of Spiritualism, while Mrs.
Catharine Fox Jencken sat in a neighboring box and gave assent by her
presence to all that she said:
"That I have been chiefly instrumental in perpetrating the fraud of
Spiritualism upon a too confiding public, most of you doubtless know.
"The greatest sorrow of my life has been that this is true, and though it
has come late in my day, I am now prepared to tell the truth, the whole
truth and nothing but the truth,--so help me God!
"There are probably many here who will scorn me for the deception I have
practiced, yet did they know the true history of my unhappy past, the
living agony and shame that it has been to me, they would pity, not
reproach.
"The imposition which I have so long maintained began in my early
childhood, when, with character and mind still unformed, I was unable to
distinguish between right and wrong.
"I repented it in my maturity. I have lived through years of silence,
through intimidation, scorn and bitter adversity, concealing as best I
might, the consciousness of my guilt. Now, thanks to God and my awakened
conscience, I am at last able to reveal the fatal truth, the exact truth
of this hideous fraud which has withered so many hearts and has blighted
so many hopeful lives.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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