The Death-Blow to Spiritualism Part 17

"It is this same baleful influence which has been the nightmare of my existence. Every morning of my life on awaking, I have had this horrid thought before me. And even in those younger days I would brood and brood over it, and Dr. Kane would often say to me:

"'Maggie, I see the vampire is hovering over you still.'

"Our whole family was at that time under bondage, as it were, to Ann Leah Brown. She ruled over us as with a rod of iron.

"All through this dreadful life--from the time when I first realized its enormity--I protested against it. Dr. Kane, after our marriage, would never permit me to allude to my old career--he wanted me to forget it. He hated its publicity.

"But when I was poor after his death, I was driven back to it. I have told my sister Leah over and again: 'Now that you are rich, why don't you save your soul?' But she would only fly into a pa.s.sion. The truth is that nothing can excuse the work she has done. She entered upon it at the age of judgment and experience, fully aware of its falsity and evil effect.

She knows that the world cannot forgive her, and I have no hope that she will ever confess her sin, or offer an atonement for it.

"What can I add to the revelations of those letters? They are proofs of the mutual knowledge of Dr. Kane and myself that the 'spiritual' rappings were fraud, and nothing but fraud. And even if he had not been told of the fact by myself, his opportunities of observation in our household were unequaled by any granted to others, and his verdict would have been in any case, therefore, almost as authoritative.

"What fools are they who still pretend to believe against all this evidence!

"It would hardly seem necessary that I should denounce Spiritualism after all that others have said against it.

"I have never in my life professed to be a spiritualist, and I have never believed in Spiritualism, although I have seen it in all its phases, some of which I am unable to produce myself.

"Even when I was compelled to go back to the 'rappings' for a livelihood, and when I charged the most exorbitant fees, so that as few people as possible might be deceived, I had on my cards an emphatic disclaimer of any occult inspiration."

Mrs. Kane at this point showed the following on the back of one of her cards:

MRS. KANE DOES NOT CLAIM ANY SPIRIT POWER; BUT PEOPLE MUST JUDGE FOR THEMSELVES.

"My poor father and mother," she continued, "both knew before their death that all that we had practised for so many years was a fraud and a deception. Mother was greatly troubled about it, and she turned to the church for comfort. She used to say to us:

"'Oh, my dear children, I do hope that you will get out of this sort of life soon.'

"Peace be unto her!"

The evil effects of Spiritualism upon the moral and mental condition of its followers is the deepest stain upon its history. The wrecks of thousands of intellects are monuments to its heartless fraud and malign influence.

Mrs. Kane has often said that if in her late years she had wholly submitted herself to its foolish vagaries and its base temptations, she would undoubtedly be now a raving maniac.

There are many who, if they would but speak truly, could declare that ruin of conscience, brain and health, has resulted either from their willing faith in flimsy illusions or their weak connivance in puerile deception.

I have touched but little upon the unclean side of Spiritualism. Thousands upon thousands of virtuous men and women entertain its theory or hold to its faith. But the manipulators of the supernatural machinery, the members of the inner circle, the prestidigitateurs and clumsy magicians, who seek to make simpletons of mankind, I now accuse of the grossest practices and abominations, the loosest social ideas, the most utter absence of principle that has been exhibited by any one set of people in the nineteenth century.

They are wholly corrupt, and there is no good in them.

If Spiritualism in any form survives the blow now given it by Margaret and Catherine Fox, who were its creators, it will only be because of the veiled licentiousness introduced into it by those who have enlarged upon its original plan.

This licentiousness, like the bruised serpent, will not down, but still will lift its head, and lurk amid deepest shadows.

Spiritualism, however, cannot again deceive the world.

And it is written:

"The dead shall not return; nor any that go down into h.e.l.l!"

INDEX.

INDEX.

ABJURATION by Margaret Fox Kane of Spiritualism at the Academy of Music, New York, 65, 74.

ADMISSIONS of Mrs. Leah Fox Fish regarding the results of the Buffalo medical investigation, 140, 144.

AGa.s.sIZ (Professor) investigates Spiritualism, 147.

ANTICS of the Fox Children at Hydesville near Rochester, 83, 87, 89, 96.

ATTRACTIONS of the younger Fox Sisters, 129.

AUDACITY (Imbecile) of spiritualistic imposters, 146.

--(Supreme) of fraud, 150.

AUTHORIZATION of the publication of this work by Margaret Fox Kane and Catherine Fox Jencken, 7.

"BABY mediums.h.i.+p"

--How the trick was done with the child of Mrs. Catherine Fox Jencken, 160.

BELIEF in Spiritualism, --Mrs. Kane never pretended to any, 167, 181, 236.

--John D. Fox never had any, 99.

"BOBBING" of apples on the floor in the Hydesville house, 84, 90, 95.

BOOMERANGS (Spiritualistic), 131.

BROWN (Mrs. Ann Leah Fox), --Malignant opposition to Dr. Kane's efforts to detach her sister Maggie from Spiritualism, 222, 232.

--Exulting in deception, 223.

--Maggie warned against her by Dr. Kane, 227.

--Sinister influence over her sisters, 232.

"BUFFALO Doctors"

--Their investigation of the "rappings," 131.

--Their correct theory, but wrong hypothesis, 131.