THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MO]^^THLY. 



APRIL. 1889. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPIRITUALISM. 



Br JOSEPH JASTROW. 



IN 1848, from the town of Hydeville, New York, came the some- 

 what startling discovery that certain knockings, the source of 

 which had mystified the household of one of its residents, seemed 

 to be intelligently guided and ready to appear at call. Communi- 

 cation was established by agreeing that one rap should mean 

 " no," and three raps " yes " ; to which was afterward added the 

 device of calling off the alphabet and noting at which letters the 

 raps occurred ; in this way the rapper revealed himself as the 

 spirit of a murdered peddler. Within five years the news of this 

 simple and childish invention had called into existence thousands 

 of spirit-circles, had developed wonderful "mediums," through 

 whose special gifts the manifestations were ascribed, had amassed 

 a vast store of strange testimony, and the movement had become 

 an epidemic ; and this, too, in spite of the fact that, in 1851, the 

 peculiar double raps occurring in the presence of these Fox sisters * 



* Since this article was written, Margaret Fox (now Mrs. Kane) and Katie Fox (now 

 Mrs. Jencken) have publicly confessed that the raps to which they as children gave rise 

 were produced by dislocations of the toes. They have publicly shown the method of their 

 production, and seem earnestly desirous of retarding the growth of the movement to which 

 they so unintentionally gave rise. They plead for our mercy, on the ground that the move- 

 ment was started when they were too young to appreciate what was being done, and that, 

 when they realized the fraud and the encouragement they were receiving, it was too late or 

 too difficult to retract. It is a pity that this confession comes so late, and the more so, 

 that it has been made under such sensational surroundings. Had the confession been 

 placed in the hands of a respectable scientific body, such as the Soybert commission, a 

 more lasting service to mankind would have resulted. But none the less is it proper to 

 derive from this confession a valuable lesson for intending investigators, and a charac- 

 teristic proof of the moral taint in which the germs of this growth were laid and have 

 developed. 



VOL. XXXIV. — i6 



