Rochester Rappings

The Fox sisters were three sisters from New York who played an important role in the creation of Spiritualism. The three sisters were Leah Fox (1814–1890), Margaret Fox (also called Maggie) (1833–1893) and Kate Fox (1837–1892). The two younger sisters used "rappings" to convince their much older sister and others that they were communicating with spirits. Their older sister then took charge of them and managed their careers for some time. They all enjoyed success as mediums for many years.
In 1888 Margaret confessed that their rappings had been a hoax and publicly demonstrated their method.
"Mrs. Underhill, my eldest sister, took Katie and me to Rochester. There it was that we discovered a new way to make the raps. My sister Katie was the first to observe that by swishing her fingers she could produce certain noises with her knuckles and joints, and that the same effect could be made with the toes. Finding that we could make raps with our feet - first with one foot and then with both - we practiced until we could do this easily when the room was dark. Like most perplexing things when made clear, it is astonishing how easily it is done. The rapping are simply the result of a perfect control of the muscles of the leg below the knee, which govern the tendons of the foot and allow action of the toe and ankle bones that is not commonly known. Such perfect control is only possible when the child is taken at an early age and carefully and continually taught to practice the muscles, which grow stiffer in later years. ... This, then, is the simple explanation of the whole method of the knocks and raps."
She also noted:
"A great many people when they hear the rapping imagine at once that the spirits are touching them. It is a very common delusion. Some very wealthy people came to see me some years ago when I lived in Forty-second Street and I did some rappings for them. I made the spirit rap on the chair and one of the ladies cried out: "I feel the spirit tapping me on the shoulder." Of course that was pure imagination."
In 1888 both Margaret and Katie made very strong statements against Spiritualism:
• "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 in my life has been that this is true, and though it has come late in my day, I am now prepared to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God! I am here tonight as one of the founders of Spiritualism to denounce it as an absolute falsehood from beginning to end, as the flimsiest of superstitions, the most wicked blasphemy known to the world." — Margaretta Fox Kane
• "I regard Spiritualism as one of the greatest curses that the world has ever known." — Katie Fox Jencken

Margaret attempted to recant her confession the next year, but their reputation was ruined and in less than five years they were all dead, with Margaret and Kate dying in abject poverty.
Spiritualism continued as if the confessions of the Fox sisters had never happened.
See: http://pvrguymale.blogspot.com/2011/03/eusapia-palladino.html


Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 –1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century (the belief in an ideal spirituality that "transcends" the physical and empirical and is realized only through the individual's intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions).
Evidently Ralph Waldo Emerson was not amused over the "Rochester Rappings" or "Rochester Knockings" as they had become to be known.
For, as he wrote in his journal in 1852:
• Miss Bridge, a matuamaker[1] in Concorde, became a ”Medium” , and gave up her old trade for this new one; and is to charge a pistareen[2] a spasm, and nine dollars for it. This is the Rat-revelation, the Gospel that comes by taps in the wall, and thumps in the table-drawer. The spirits make themselves of no repudiation. They are (real) rats and mice of Society. And one of the demure disciples of the rat-tat-too , the other day, remarked, “that this, like of every other communication from the spirit world, began very low.” It was not ill said; for Christianity began in a manger, and the Knuckle dispensation in a rat-hole.
[1] A dressmaker is a person who makes custom clothing for women, such as dresses, blouses, and evening gowns. Also called a mantua-maker (historically) or a modiste.
[2] A small silver coin used in America and the West Indies during the 18th century.