KATIE FOX JENCKEN
MARGARET FOX KANE
ELISHA KENT KANE, M.D.
“I know that the pursuit of this shadowy belief has wrought upon my brain and that I am no longer my old self. Money I have spent in thousands and thousands of dollars within a few short years to propitiate the ‘mediumistic’ intelligence. It is true that never once have I received a message or the token of a word that did not leave a still unsatisfied longing in my heart, a feeling that it was not really my loved one after all who was speaking to me, or if it was my loved one that he was changed, that I hardly knew him and he hardly knew me. But that must have been the true intuition. It is better that the delusion is past, after all, for had I kept on in that way, I am sure I should have gone mad. The constant seeking, the frequent pretended response, its unsatisfying meaning, the sense of distance and change between me and my loved one—oh! it has been horrible, horrible!
“He who is dying of thirst and has the sweet cup ever snatched from his lips, just as the first drop touches them—he alone can know what in actual things is the similitude of this Spiritualistic torture.
“God bless you, for I think that you now speak the truth. You have my forgiveness at least, and I believe that thousands of others will forgive you, for the atonement made in season wipes out much of the stain of the early sin.”
Margaret Kane’s “confession” did not bring her the relief or friends she had hoped for, nor did it end her connection with Spiritualism for, glad as she would have been to give it up for good, her theatrical exposure was a financial failure and before long she was down and out again and once more she resorted to Spiritualism as a means of livelihood, giving seances and mediumistic meetings in a number of cities throughout the United States; but her power of fooling the public was gone. Having confessed to deceit once, no amount of persuasion on her part could convince the public that she was genuine, and in place of the thousands who had flocked to her in her younger days she never had more than a handful at her meetings. Her only friends were Spiritualists for strangely enough some of them still had faith in her, even when she was exposing Spiritualism, believing that she had fallen into the hands of evil spirits when she confessed that she was a fraud.
Some time after the confession a “recantation” was circulated as coming from Mrs. Kane. I was never able to find any proof of its authenticity but my friend, Mr. W. S. Davis, who knew her well, informed me that she did make it—that she had to, or starve. It was not wholly voluntary though as Mr. Newton (then President of the First Society of Spiritualists) convinced her that it would be for her interest, and the interest of Spiritualism as well to do it. It made little difference, however, for the career of the unfortunate woman was nearly over. Frequently overcome by drink, forced on by privation and misery, death came to her, on March 8, 1895, less than seven years after she had stood in a crowded theatre and deliberately shown the method of making the raps which had brought her fame for four decades.