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The Fox sisters were three sisters from New York who played an important role in the creation of Spiritualism: Leah (1814–1890), Margaret (also called Maggie) (1833–1893) and Kate (also called Catherine) Fox (1837–1892).〔Tyson, Philip; Jones, Dai; Elcock, Jonathan. (2011). ''Psychology in Social Context: Issues and Debates''. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 196. ISBN 978-1-4443-9623-2〕 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 and Kate confessed that their rappings had been a hoax and publicly demonstrated their method. 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.〔Podmore, Frank. (2011, originally published in 1902). ''Modern Spiritualism: A History and a Criticism''. Cambridge University Press. p. 188. ISBN 978-1-108-07257-1 "In the autumn of 1888 Mrs. Kane (Margaretta Fox) and Mrs. Jencken (Catherine Fox) made public, and apparently spontaneous, confession, that the raps had been produced by fraudulent means. Mrs. Kane even gave demonstrations before large audiences of the actual manner in which the toe joints had been used at the early seances. Mrs. Jencken, at any rate, if not also Mrs. Kane, afterwards recanted her confession."〕〔Lehman, Amy. (2009). ''Victorian Women and the Theatre of Trance: Mediums, Spiritualists and Mesmerists in Performance''. McFarland. p. 87. ISBN 978-0-7864-3479-4 "By the 1880s, Maggie, like her sister Kate who was now widowed after losing her English husband Jenckens, had become a full-blown alcoholic. In 1888, the sisters confessed that they had faked the ghostly rapping which precipitated the age of spirit contact. They claimed to have produced knocking sounds by manipulating and cracking the joints in their feet and knees. For a while they made money giving lectures about this "deathblow" to Spiritualism. However, before she died, Maggie recanted the confession, and Kate began conveying spirit messages to close friends once again. Ultimately, trance mediumship brought the sisters neither wealth nor happiness. Both died in penurious circumstances, essentially drinking themselves to death."〕 Spiritualism continued as if the confessions of the Fox sisters had never happened.〔Wiseman, Richard. (2011). ''Paranormality: Why We See What Isn't There''. Macmillan. p. 118. ISBN 978-0-230-75298-6 "The only real impact of the confession was to distance the sisters from their supporters. The vast majority of Spiritualists were eager to cling to the comforting thought that they might survive bodily death, and they were not going to let a couple of rambling alcoholics stand in the way of immortality. But although Margaretta tried to retract her remarks shortly after confessing all, for the Fox sisters at least, the damage had been done. Increasingly distanced from the movement that they helped to create, both sisters died in poverty a few years later and were buried in pauper’s graves. Neither made contact from the spirit world."〕 == Hydesville events == In 1848, the two younger sisters – Kate (age 12) and Margaret (age 15) – were living in a house in Hydesville, New York with their parents. Hydesville no longer exists but was a hamlet that was part of the township of Arcadia in Wayne County, New York just outside of Newark.〔Weisberg, Barbara. (2004). ''Talking to the Dead: Kate and Maggie Fox and the Rise of Spiritualism''. HarperOne. pp. 12–13. ISBN 0-06-075060-X〕 The house had some reputation for being haunted, but it wasn't until late March that the family began to be frightened by unexplained sounds that at times sounded like knocking and at other times like the moving of furniture. In 1888, Margaret told her story of the origins of the mysterious "rappings":〔Houdini, Harry. (2011, originally published in 1924). ''A Magician Among the Spirits''. Cambridge University Press. pp. 1-17. ISBN 978-1-108-02748-9〕 :"When we went to bed at night we used to tie an apple to a string and move the string up and down, causing the apple to bump on the floor, or we would drop the apple on the floor, making a strange noise every time it would rebound. Mother listened to this for a time. She would not understand it and did not suspect us as being capable of a trick because we were so young." During the night of March 31, Kate challenged the invisible noisemaker, presumed to be a "spirit", to repeat the snaps of her fingers. "It" did.〔Doyle, Arthur Conan. (1926). ''The History of Spiritualism''. Cassell And Company Ltd. pp. 56-85〕 "It" was asked to rap out the ages of the girls. "It" did.〔 The neighbours were called in. Over the course of the next few days a code was developed where raps could signify yes or no in response to a question or be used to indicate a letter of the alphabet.〔 The girls addressed the spirit as "Mr. Splitfoot" which is a nickname for the Devil. Later, the alleged "entity" creating the sounds claimed to be the spirit of a peddler named Charles B. Rosna,〔 who had been murdered five years earlier and buried in the cellar. Doyle claims the neighbors dug up the cellar and found a few pieces of bone, but it wasn't until 1904 that a skeleton was found, buried in the cellar wall. No missing person named Charles B. Rosna was ever identified.〔 Margaret Fox, in her later years noted: : "They (neighbors ) were convinced that some one had been murdered in the house. They asked the spirits through us about it and we would rap one for the spirit answer 'yes,' not three as we did afterwards. The murder they concluded must have been committed in the house. They went over the whole surrounding country trying to get the names of people who had formerly lived in the house. Finally they found a man by the name of Bell, and they said that this poor innocent man had committed a murder in the house and that the noises had come from the spirit of the murdered person. Poor Bell was shunned and looked upon by the whole community as a murderer."〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Fox sisters」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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