Psychomancy: Spirit-Rappings and Table-Tippings Exposed

by Charles Grafton Page

The rappers were then sitting some distance from the table, and we asked if the "Spirits would rap upon the table?" Rap! No. "Will the spirit please to rap upon the table?" Rap, rap, rap. "Not now." It seems that three raps for the expression "Not now" was a part of the spiritual stenography, as they had occasion to use this evasion quite often to escape difficulties. "Will the spirit please to explain why it will not rap upon the table?" Rap, rap, rap! "Not now." "When will it?" "This evening, at such an hour," naming it. This last communication was spelled out by the Fox mother, and a time was named at which it would be impossible to get an opportunity to propound such a question, as they held their spiritual levee in the evening to crowds. Moreover, we had no desire to repeat the question to these tricksters, to be shuffled, as we most certainly should have been, with the same prevarication. On the occasion of our first visit, Mr. * * * said that the spirits had rapped upon his foot, while sitting at a table. The experiment was repeated by request, and very likely would have been successful, if we had not fixed our eyes very intently upon his and the rappers' feet. As it was, this feat was not performed. On the second visit, we implored the spirits to rap upon our feet. "Not now," was the answer. It was evident that we were not receiving our money's worth of spiritual manifestations according to the show-bill; but, as every failure was our gain, we were not disposed to quarrel with the rappers or the spirits. One of my scientific friends then asked if they would not rap if they were suspended in a swing, or stood upon a pillow? "Oh yes," was the reply, "we have done that; that has all been tried." One of the Fox girls proposed to send upstairs for a pillow, but it occurred to us that they might rap while standing upon any common-sized pillow, for the reason that their dresses would cover and extend beyond the pillow, and thus give them an opportunity to get their rapping instrument down upon the floor over the sides of the pillow. We therefore proceeded immediately, while they were engaged in some conversation, to make up a cushion upon the floor to suit our own views. We gathered a number of cloaks, and laid them folded upon the floor, so as to make a circular cushion of about three and a half feet diameter, and so thick that we were persuaded no ordinary raps with their instrument could be heard through the soft mass, or if any sound should be produced it would be so modified as to betray its origin. The Fox mother objected to this preparation; but the girls said, "We know we can rap; the spirits will rap there, for they have always done so." By way of an excuse for making this cushion, we remarked that one of the coats was silk, and that we would ascertain if electricity had any thing to do with it. The Fox mother said, "All that had been tried before; and that the girls[5]could rap standing upon glass tumblers, and that she knew it must be the spirits, for these manifestations had been with them now for six years." We replied (to keep up our argument), "You know that there are persons who think these sounds are all due to some modification of electricity, and others who think that electricity is the very essence of spirituality,[6] and we wish to see in this case how far it may be concerned in the phenomena." There was no resisting this, and we were allowed to proceed. The result was exactly as we anticipated. While standing upon the cushion they could not rap at all. The principal rapper saw her predicament, and took her stand upon the cushion so that her dress was partly over the edge of the cushion, but this we objected to, and requested her to stand upon the centre of the cushion, upon the plea that if her dress touched the floor, it would conduct away the electricity. A perfectly empirical reason, of course; but they were none the wiser for that, and as soon as every thing was arranged to our liking, she invoked the spirit to rap. No rap came. Again and again the spirit was besought, but no response was given. She then asked her sister to come and stand upon the cushion with her, thinking, in her subtlety, that two of them would occupy so much room as to give one, at least, a chance to have her dress over the edge of the cushion. But this we were prepared for; and gathered in the skirts of their dresses upon the cushion, upon the same plea as before. The result was the same as with one. No raps. The fact was, their arts were completely baffled, the spirits had fled, and the experiment not only proved the falsity of the assertion that they could rap standing on cushions, or when suspended in a swing, but afforded the most conclusive evidence of the immediate and wilful agency of these Fox girls in producing these sounds.

Thinking to redeem themselves from the inevitable verdict of this trial, the principal rapper proposed to stand upon glass tumblers, to see if the spirits would rap then, as they had done on former occasions. She took her stand upon the tumblers. This elevated the lower border of her dress above the floor, and it so happened that one of our number was sufficiently far from her that he could have seen her feet on the rapping instrument. She invoked the spirit. "Will the spirit please to rap?" No rap. She then stooped a little, as if addressing the spirit below. "Will the spirit please to rap now?" No rap. She then stooped a little more, and by this time her dress was fairly down upon the floor, so as to cover feet and tumblers. "Will the spirit please to rap now?" Rap, rap. This was very adroitly done, but the trick was clear to us. How strange it is, that she should have been obliged to stoop, and to have invoked the spirit three times before the answer came; and, moreover, that she should look down to the floor for the spirit; and how passing strange it is that these modern spirits should have such a fondness for long dresses and girls' toes. We then requested her to stand upon a chair, and rap. This she did promptly, and the rap came at a bidding. The sound was different from that produced upon the carpeted floor, and underwent just the proper modification of a blow struck upon a hard, uncovered, wooden seat. Here we stopped, having seen quite enough of this game of "Fox and Geese." Before leaving the room, one of the rappers requested our scientific friend not to publish them, and another stepped up to the lady present, saying, "You do not think that I have any machinery about me to make these sounds, do you?" We have it on the authority of this lady, who seemed determined to leave nothing untried to lead to the detection of this imposture, that she asked these rappers if they would consent to a private examination of their persons, and that they refused it positively, adding that if she had any doubt as to the reality of these spiritual manifestations she would have satisfactory revelations made to her in her bed-chamber five weeks from that time. This prophetic intelligence they rapped out for the occasion according to their own fancy and usual evasive duplicity in such cases. The five weeks have passed, but the lady has, of course, received no spiritual visitations as predicted.

Our readers are now ready to ask if we have discovered the machinery or instrumentality by which these girls make the sounds. In answer, we say that our investigation is conclusive that these sounds are entirely at the control of these girls, and that we have placed them in situations where they could not rap at all. And if, after all this, we have invented several modes by which the rappings can be made as successfully as by them, we think we have discovered enough. During each of our two visits, we noticed, by very cautious and careful inspection, one interesting and significant fact—that each rap was attended with a slight movement of the person of the rapper, and that a very distinct motion of the dress was visible about the right hypogastric region. While watching this point the girl noticed us, and immediately rose, went to the window, and dropped the curtain to darken the room, which was on the north side of the building, and full dark enough before. When she sat down she drew her shawl over this part of her person. This was on the first visit. On the second visit, we were soon discovered watching this movement again, and she rose and procured a shawl with which she covered her person as before. We do not pretend to decide that this movement had any direct connection with the instrument by which she rapped upon the floor; if so, it was very clumsy and awkward, for we have devised a mode of rapping that involves no such motion, and which we will shortly explain. It may have been that this movement was connected with the device for rapping upon the table. We are of opinion that when they rapped upon the table, it was upon the under side of the table-top and not about their feet. They did not, and evidently could not, rap upon the table without sitting closely up to the table. If this conjecture, as to the rap under the table-top, is right, the movement we saw is easily accounted for. Be it so, or be it not, we have invented a contrivance which raps upon the under side of the table-top, and which involves precisely the motion we discovered. It requires but little exercise of ingenuity to contrive means of producing these sounds. It has been stated that a relative of these girls has made a public statement under oath, that they produce the raps with their toes, in a peculiar manner acquired by long practice. The public papers tell us that electro-magnetism has been employed to carry out this fraud. The snapping of the joints has been resorted to by another; and indeed we can easily imagine a variety of ways in which these sounds are, or may be produced. The Fox girls rapped upon neither of these plans. The sound was machine-like, and too loud for a sound that could be made by striking the naked or unarmed toe upon the floor, and entirely too loud for, and differing in character from, the snapping of the joints, and as to electro-magnetism, it was entirely out of the question in this case. The Fox girls visit the houses of strangers and rap always with the same ease every where. The raps are never remote from their persons but always directly about their feet, unless it be when they are sitting at the table, as we have before said, when the rap appears to be on the under side of the table-top, although we would not undertake to decide fully upon this latter point, as they would not allow us to choose our position so as to judge of the true direction of the sound; for as soon as my coadjutor looked under the table, the spirits decamped and we had no rapping. There are certain circumstances, under which no ear, however skilful and practised, can judge correctly of the position or distance where certain sounds originate. Such a case is exemplified in the common speaking tubes used in public houses and elsewhere. When you place your ear near the tube, the voice appears to be uttered close to the ear, though the person speaking may be at a great distance. The Invisible Lady is another instance, for a full account of which, see Brewster's work on Natural Magic. But the most remarkable illustration of this case is exhibited in the following manner. If you take an iron rod ten, twenty, fifty, or one hundred feet in length and strike it at one end, the blow is heard by a person having his ear close at the other end precisely as if the blow was struck near his ear. This illusion is more remarkable if the listener cannot hear the original blow through the medium of the air. To make the whole experiment very imposing, suppose an iron rod, three-fourths of an inch in diameter, projecting three or four feet through the floor of a large hall, and that this projecting part is a continuation of a rod passing beneath the floor of the room, and concealed entirely from observation and terminating out of doors, or in a distant apartment. Whenever a blow is struck upon the remote and concealed end, the sound not being heard except through the medium of the rod, appears to every person present, precisely as if it issued from the projecting end within the hall. With proper pre-concertion and ceremonial preparation, such a contrivance as this would far exceed, in mysterious character, the shallow trickery of these feet-rappers. From this experiment, which we have tried with entire success with a rod only twenty feet in length, we see how closely we must look to all the attendant circumstances and possibilities of the case, before we can conclude strictly upon the position of the origin of sounds, where their origin is out of sight. We know that the rapping was always about their heels when these girls sat in chairs, stood upon the floor, or in chairs, or stood in the wardrobe, or rapped upon the door. For this part of the performance we had abundant opportunities for examination, and if these girls will stand upon the floor and allow us to examine their feet, at the time of the rapping, we defy them and their spirits to produce the rappings without a full exposure. It is worthy of note that witches have always been far more numerous than wizards. There are reasons for such disparity in numbers, but this rapping business is particularly the province of females. There are no male rappers unless it be of late, since they have resorted to confederacy, or electrical or mechanical tricks. There are no men-rappers who rap upon such an extensive scale as the Fox girls. The latter are not confined to a certain table, a certain room, or certain spots in a room, or a certain house. They carry their "Rattle-traps" about with them, and go from house to house, and their "familiar spirits" are very sociable, unceremonious, and accommodating. If they will but adopt the Bloomer costume, our word for it, the spirits would signify their disapprobation by departing at once. Relying upon their sex they trust the courtesy of their visitors as sufficient protection against the examination of even their feet, and therefore they make bold to wear unusually long dresses the better to conceal their movements and rapping apparatus. When the girl stood upon tumblers, she did not venture to rap till, by gradual stooping, she brought her dress down so as to cover her feet and touch the floor. There are then special reasons why this kind of witchery should be played off by females. The Fox style of rapping CANNOT be performed by men, or in the male attire. We do not attribute to woman more or greater proneness, or power to deceive than to man; but when woman undertakes to deceive, she is generally more successful. She is less suspected, has fewer motives, runs greater risk, and incurs greater loss in the event of disclosures, and with the blandishments of person and sex, she silences opposition, smothers inquiry, defies and escapes inspection, and lastly takes captive the head with the heart. Possessed of greater susceptibilities and easily impressed; she is more readily carried away by new and strange fascinations, and in times of certain remarkable developements of sympathetic witchcrafts, she is the first to be imposed upon and most apt to impose upon herself. This characteristic is well illustrated in the case of the jerks, a species of witch mania which prevailed in this country so extensively many years ago, in which women figured so largely. Sympathetic action is potential with both sexes, but especially with women does it overpower sense, reason and volition, giving rise to temporary insanity. We are however uncharitable enough to believe that, in many cases, upon these occasions the surrendry of the judgment and bewilderment of the imagination is not altogether involuntary, and that the whole operation of being bewitched might be arrested at a certain stage of its progress by an effort to resist, except perhaps in conditions of extreme hysteria and nervous prostration, or irritability. We have seen a young lady of the very highest respectability at a table-tipping, tugging away at the table to make it move, and all the while endeavoring to conceal her exertions, and declaring, when interrogated, that she did "not make the slightest effort." Can it be that she had become so infatuated as to forget that she was, or to persuade herself that she was not, deceiving, and yet all the while to be so assiduous and adroit in accomplishing her object? Charity says yes. Well! after all, there is something in the feat of deceiving and blinding reverend and grave Senators, Judges and Priests, well calculated to whet the pride, stimulate the cunning, and foster the love of power in a young Miss, especially when her arts are practised upon some doings not embraced in the criminal code nor amenable to law. There are probably—paradoxical as it may seem—cases of honest deception. The desire to accomplish something great, something exceeding the common course of familiar phenomena, may be so strong as to beget an entire perversion of all truthfulness, a self sanctioning of error, artfulness, and imposture, oblivion of conscience, an enthusiastic profession of faith and spirited advocacy of the new developments, a bending of every thing to conceal the fraud, and withal a remarkable preservation of the appearance of sincerity, and an air of ingenuousness so well put on as to appear natural, which go very far to inveigle those who may witness the performances.

Of the modes we have devised of producing rappings we will not explain more than one, that being sufficient to effect rapping sounds without disturbance of the person. We have contrived a great many, and although we have not seen the particular mode employed by the Fox girls, yet we can rap just as well. A piece of soft metal such as lead, shaped like a chain shot or dumb-bell, tied to the great toe may be made to pound upon the floor, the door, the bottom of a wardrobe, or any surface or thing which may be under or about the feet, with forcible demonstrations. If any person will make the effort to move the toe up and down while the sole of the foot rests firmly upon the floor, it will be found that a considerable motion may be effected, and of course a rapping, without a disturbance of the person. A little practice will make perfect. In order to walk about without the rattling of the rapping piece, it is necessary to tie to one end of it an elastic cord, a piece of vulcanized rubber answering very well, and fasten this around the waist. A slight stooping or sitting down will leave the instrument free to work. If you have thin shoes or slippers on, it may be affixed outside of the slippers, or you can have it attached to the toe, and make the slipper large enough to slip over the whole and slip it off, when rappings are called for. One other element and we are all equipped for spiritual rappings; petticoats or long dresses are indispensable to complete the invention. Whatever be the contrivance adopted to rap upon the floor, the whole must be concealed within the sanctuary of skirts beyond the invasion of the curious or rude. We have other more perfect, better concealed rapping instruments than the one just described,[7] but not quite so simple or easy of application. Moreover the one described gives the double rap, (a peculiarity of the Fox contrivance.) These girls managed their instrument adroitly, and deserve some little credit for their ingenuity in contriving and operating an instrument so successfully as to baffle the scrutiny of thousands of their visitors. They walk freely about with their instruments, though a lady remarked to us that they both walked very awkwardly. With local preparations "mysterious" rappings may be produced in a variety of ways, but these girls, the prototypes of all rappers, neither employed or needed any aid from electro-magnetic motions, acoustic science, or confederacy to practise their arts, they used more ingenious and simple means. It is possible to make a rapping electro-magnetic movement, battery and all, small enough to be carried under the dress, but like the telegraph, it must be controlled by volition and muscular action of the operator, and where is the advantage of this over a mechanical instrument that raps directly? There is no necessity for wonderment or the taxation of ingenuity on account of these rapping sounds so long as you are excluded from a personal examination of the rappers. We wish very much that the civil authorities would pounce upon these rappers in the "very act" (for obtaining money upon false pretences)—(or some other plea) and make a forcible disclosure of their trappings. We believe that this can and should be done, and that such a proceeding would meet the full sanction of law and justice; that universal public opinion would sustain it, and we have no doubt of the nature and effect of the denouement. If it had already been done, we should have been spared the labor of this treatise at least, and we need not advert to the vast amount of suffering and vice that would have been forestalled.

Seeing then, that we can rap, yes, and give the double rap, how shall we account for the extraordinary prophecies, messages, coincidences and communications in accordance with facts? We wish this had been the only difficulty to surmount, for it perplexes much less than the feminine security of these rappers against the inspection of their actual quomodò. We can most safely presume that if by search warrant, stratagem, or vi et armis, the rapping instrument of these Fox girls had been exposed to the public, there would not have been one doubt about the nature and origin of the spiritual communications, nor the question ever asked, how it happened that these communications were so wonderfully true to fact. Brains, books, good and bad spirits, devils and all would not have been needed for this discussion. Indeed where is the necessity at all, of dragging out human weakness, credulity, and duplicity to solve the psychological part of this fraud and forgery, if we can rap as well as the Fox girls (the great guns of rappism), and on the strength of our rappings tell more truth and fewer lies than their spirits, what need have we of metaphysical disquisitions on the handwriting found in a drawer or any where else, resembling Mr. Calhoun's, John Smith's, or any other of the great departed?[8] So far as our experience went, the Fox girls made few, very few good hits, and perpetrated a vast amount of most intolerable nonsense and contradiction; enough of itself, even if the rappings had been made outside the pale of their queenly robes one inch, two feet, above their heads, in the aerial centre of the room, disconnected with every tangible and visible thing, to have turned any sensible man on his heel instanter, with contempt and disgust. But for the sake of those who are duped or perplexed by these communications, we must spend a little breath to enlighten them. When a man suspects supernatural agency or interference in physical, really visible, sensible, or tangible demonstrations, he is ready to believe any thing communicated at the time, and when he comes to the full belief in divine interposition, his faith is perfected. Where, by long practice, preparation and skill, tricks are performed with a view to imposition, it requires the highest degree of coolness, calmness, and self-possession, to resist the impression of the superhuman, and however well fortified we may be in these respects, it is hardly to be expected that we should be able to discover the real nature of the performance without some experience and practice on our side. The instant the idea of the superhuman gets possession of the mind all fitness for investigation and power of analysis begins to vanish, and credulity swells to its utmost capacity. The most glaring inconsistencies and absurdities are not discerned and are swallowed whole, and so deep is the blindness and so extraordinary in its character, that we have seen a convert made to spiritual rappism upon the strength of one single coincidence selected from among a great mass of disgusting mummery and perversion of truth. Not one of the discrepancies, were of any importance with him; one lucky hit of the rappers and the whole performance, errors, raps and all were invested with supernatural power. Now, how does it happen, that the believer in such cases does not notice the incongruities and failures, or does not appear to notice them. This is somewhat of a psychological phenomenon, but might as well be explained on the ground of unfairness, as any other; unfairness is as often the beginning and accompaniment of infatuation, as a mental incapacity for more than one idea. A shrewd person can, at any time, take a promiscuous company, and with the imposture of rapping, or any other trick, calculated to divert the attention, and a mode of spelling out communications similar to that adopted by the Fox girls, make out as many or more wonderful and seemingly supernatural communications as they, certainly not more of error and absurdity. We were once riding in a stage-coach, with a gentleman, who, after a long journey, laid a wager with another that he would tell the occupation of every person in the coach. To the surprise of all he won the wager. A lady present, apparently much hurt, asked how he knew she was a "housekeeper." The reply was, Because I saw you frequently putting your hands to your belt—for the keys. Many of our shrewd itinerant phrenologists, after the parade of measuring and fumbling one's head, and a few master-key questions, will portray the life and character with a wonderful degree of accuracy. Our stage-coach pythonist had, during the journey, watched the motions, complexion, conversation, expression of countenance, appearance of the hands, the dress,—in fine, ever little circumstance of habit or person, and it so happened judged rightly in each case. It is so with the phrenologist, who draws his information mostly from similar sources.[9] It is so with the rappers; they observe carefully, have experience with persons of all classes, and generally, unless molested by some skeptic, have every thing in their own way. Their visitors, especially the dupes, betray more to these rappers than their own skill can eliminate, and it is surely to be expected that they should hit right sometimes. Upon mere hap-hazard conjecture, this might happen occasionally, but with all the arts and aids of preparation, credulity, and fanaticism, they become as successful as the oracles of Delos and Lesbos.

Before concluding the subject of rappings we remark briefly that a SPIRIT that cannot or will not tell the truth on all occasions, is wholly unworthy our credence or respect; and believing, as we do, that miracles are God's prerogative and all miraculous power is withheld from evil spirits as militating with the plan of Revelation, we needed no further investigation for our own satisfaction, than to know that a very large part of their pretended communications were grossly erroneous; but we have held it to be important for the sake of others that the whole subject should be examined. The fever has somewhat abated of late, but unless boldly and vigorously assailed it will reappear under some new pretension with exacerbations more virulent than ever.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This witch of Endor it seems was the only woman with a familiar spirit that had escaped death under the royal edict of Saul, and how successfully she bewitched or juggled Saul our readers all know. We refer them one and all to the 19th Chap. Leviticus, 31st verse—Ed.

[2] In Washington.

[3] The Bible teaches of witches and wizards with familiar spirits, and that they were to be put to death; of magicians, astrologers, sorcerers, soothsayers, and false prophets; but the only account of a miraculous performance by the devil, is that of his first great and momentous fraud upon our race in the garden of Eden, and this is by some considered as allegorical. Through that act he got possession of the human heart, and he needs now no external manifestations to further his intrigues.