A Commonplace Book

In 1848, the Fox family, residing in upstate New York, grew increasingly frightened by inexplicable noises in the house they were renting. One night, though, daughter Kate noticed a pattern to the sounds. So, on an impulse, the girl shouted out, "Here, Mister Splitfoot, do as I do!" She then snapped her fingers twice "and two raps immediately followed, apparently out of thin air." When sister Margaret clapped her hands four times, "four raps immediately followed." A still shaken but now intrigued Mrs. Fox took up the game--"How old is my daughter Margaret?"--and back came 14 raps. "How old is Kate?" Twelve raps.

After the Fox family finally moved, the mysterious noises followed them to their new home. Eventually, Kate and Margaret, and later their much older sister Leah, acquiesced in their destiny as mediums. But were they really human doorways to the spirit world? Late in life, Margaret confessed that everything had been faked, even demonstrating how she produced the rapping sounds by cracking her big toe. That should have settled the matter but, not long before she died, Margaret firmly recanted her recantation, now asserting that she'd been bribed by nonbelievers. As jesting Pilate famously asked, "What is truth?"