FROM SHADOW TO LIGHT.
More than thirty years after this sorrowful event, Margaret Fox Kane, in reviewing the past, attributes to the evil of Spiritualism all the ill-fortune which afterwards befell her.
For fourteen years she wore the weeds of mourning for his sake; but when at last they were torn from her by a friendly, though unwise hand, she drifted again, through the various phases of a worldly and dissipated life, to that very vocation of dreary mercenary deceit which he had predicted would be her lot. She was never happy afterwards, however, and he who possesses any true sensibility must at least pity, quite as much as he may condemn her unfortunate destiny, when he reads the sad avowals which are made in this volume.
Mrs. Kane says at the present day:
“From the very first of our intimate acquaintance, Dr. Kane knew that the ‘rappings’ which I practiced were fraudulent. Of course, he was too keen-sighted intellectually, too sensible, ever to have believed them genuine for a single instant; and I simply obeyed the impulse of my candid regard for him, when the knowledge of his devotion grew upon me, and confided to him the whole secret of the fraud, together with my increasing repugnance to the life I was leading. He hated it, he despised it, he abhorred it, and he taught me from the beginning the same sentiment. We had to combat with the sordid interest of others. Whatever good he accomplished for me, was done against the set purpose of Leah.
“I do not exaggerate in any way when I say that I have feared that woman all my life. Remember, she is twenty-three years older than I am. Her influence over both myself and my sister Kate began when we were infants. Katie, even to this day, acknowledges some sinister influence about her sister Leah, even if she but chance to meet her in the street. It is a mixture of terrorism and cajolery.
“For years I have had the shame of this vile thing before me. All my life, it has made me miserable. It is a load which I now throw off with a free heart and a great and thrilling sense of relief.
“You must know that it was a dark and hateful influence that kept me aloof from Dr. Kane so long, when he declared his true love for me, over and over again, and desired to rescue me from the evil by which I was surrounded. I gave him my whole heart in return, though at that time I did not know how deep and how tender was my love for him.
“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 passion. 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 Hell!”