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The Fox sisters Kate, Margaretta, Leah.
The Hydesville Knockings
In an obscure village where lived the family with whom the first weird phenomena, since called Modern Spiritualism, originated. It was a simple family in Rochester, Hydesville, New York State, America, the Fox family where the first highly publicised case of spiritual manifestation occurred, and where clear evidence came of an invisible spiritual intelligence.
In that place was produced constantly repeating knockings, with other mysterious sounds, and occasional movements of furniture of a distressing and ghostly character. The harassed family of the haunted dwelling summoned to their aid the priest to exorcise,
and the magistrate to compel the invisible tormentor into silence, but these failed and the ghostly presence persisted.
At first the sounds were merely slight knockings which might have been produced by the wind or falling rain. But the sounds changed, and as the weeks passed on, their recurrence became expected by the afflicted family, the sounds became loud knocks and were accompanied by noises of a far more fearful character. Ghostly voices of someone in mortal pain were heard, of someone in a prolonged violent death-struggle, followed by the smothered cry of a departing soul.
Fearfully, and terribly rang those sounds, night after night, in the ears of that frightened and helpless family. And yet these fearful happenings were the first tokens of the working of a spiritual communication system.
Fox Sisters House in Hydesville USA
Let us look at the characters involved and the events which took place on that fateful evening of March 31, 1848. Hydesville was a small hamlet about 20 miles from Rochester, New York. On December 11, 1847, John Fox, along with his wife Margaret
and their two daughters, Kate and Margaretta, moved into the house in question. The house had a reputation of being "haunted"; there were several instances recorded of raps, taps, and other noises. In fact, the prior tenant, Michael Weakman, moved out of the house because of the inexplicable disturbances.
Beginning at around the middle of March, 1848, the Fox family began to be disturbed by the strange sounds and activities. The children were so alarmed at what was happening that they refused to sleep apart and were taken into the bedroom of their parents.
The sounds were so loud, that the beds themselves often shook. Every possible opportunity was made to ascertain the source of the sounds, but to no avail. Finally, on March 31st, Kate Fox made history. She challenged the mysterious unseen power to repeat the snaps of her fingers.
Emma Hardinge Britten (1823-1899)
Emma Hardinge was born in 1823 in the East end of London. as Emma Floydd, As a child, Emma could predict coming events and often saw the spirits of dead relatives and family friends.
In 1855 Emma first visited America. At the boarding house where she was living Emma met a Spiritualist couple and was persuaded to have a sitting with a medium. The sitting was a remarkable experience that changed Emma's entire outlook on life and she was determined to develop herself as a medium. Emma discovered that she had a mediumship gift for table tipping and wrapping, where spirits made themselves known by table movements and noises. she is known for her work as an advocate for the early Modern Spiritualist Movement.
Due to the publication of her speeches and writing on the spiritual movement, and an incomplete autobiography which was edited by her sister, much of Emma?s life and work is publicly recorded. She is remembered as a writer, orator, and practitioner of the movement. Her books, Modern American Spiritualism (1870) and Nineteenth Century Miracles (1884), are some of the greatest records of the history of early modern spiritualism movement in America.
In 1855, Emma moved to New York to pursue a career in acting. One year later, she was launched to fame as a psychic medium, having accurately predicted the disappearance of the steamship Pacific. Emma had been haunted by feeling of cold and wetness, and a visit from a supposed passenger on the steamship. After the New York Times published an article describing the incident, Emma was invited by the famous Spiritualist, Horace Day, to host spiritualist séances in the Society for the Diffusion of Spiritual Knowledge. She deepened her involvement in the Spiritualist movement as a "trance lecturer" and delivered speeches across the country. Lecture topics included The Discovering of Spirits, The Philosophy of the Spirit Circle, Hades, and What Is the Basis of the Connection of the Natural and Spiritual Worlds.
As a chronicle of her active religious participation, Hardinge published the book Modern American Spiritualism (1870), a huge "encyclopedia" of the people and events associated with the early days of the movement. That same year, Emma married an ardent spiritualist, William Britten, from Boston. Emma continued to publish under the surname Hardinge, however, since her professional career was well-developed before this late-life marriage.
In 1872, Emma attempted to start a magazine, The Western Star, however, after a series of devastating fires in Boston, her impoverished clients dropped their subscriptions. The magazine failed after only six issues. Most historians agree that, as a propagandist for Spiritualism, she was unequaled in her zeal, commitment, and enthusiasm. For years she traveled all over the United States, Canada, England, Australia, and New Zealand, expounding the truths of Spiritualism and related areas of thought.
Emma Hardinge Britten founded and edited for five years the Two Worlds of Manchester. She was also among the founders of the Theosophical Society in New York, in 1875. Although she was not alive to see this happen, her dream of establishing a proper and formal "school of prophets" (training school for mediums) was realized in 1900, with the founding of the Britten Memorial Institute and Library, in Manchester, England.
Emma Hardinge Britten's writings include: Modern American Spiritualism, New York, 1870; Nineteenth Century Miracles, New York, 1884; Faith, Fact and Fraud of Religious History, Manchester, 1896; Extemporaneous Addresses, London, 1866. She was editor of the British The Unseen Universe, 1992-1893.
She is credited with defining the seven principles of Spiritualism which, with minor changes, are still in use today by the Spiritualists' National Union in the United Kingdom. They are:
The Fatherhood of God.
The Brotherhood of Man.
The Communion of Spirits and the Ministry of Angels.
The Continuous Existence of the Human Soul.
Personal Responsibility.
Compensation and Retribution hereafter for all the good and evil deeds done on earth.
Eternal Progress open to every human soul.
(In the Spiritualist tradition, it is also proper to acknowledge the "Motherhood of God and the Sisterhood of Man".)
To read more go to - Emma Hardinge Britten
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