“I will not deny it. Spiritualism is a humbug from beginning to end. It is the greatest humbug of the century. I don’t know whether she has told you this, but Maggie and I started it as very little children, too young, too innocent, to know what we were doing. Our sister Leah was twenty-three years older than either of us. We got started in the way of deception, and being encouraged in it, we went on, of course. Others, old enough to have been ashamed of the infamy, took us out into the world. My sister Leah has published a book called ‘The Missing Link of Spiritualism.’ It professes to give the true history of this movement, so far as it originated with us. Now, there’s nothing but falsehood in that book from beginning to end, excepting the fact that Horace Greeley educated me. The rest is nothing but a string of lies.”
“And about the manifestations at Hydesville in 1848 and the finding of bones in the cellar and so on?”
“All humbuggery, every bit of it.”
“And yet Maggie and I are the founders of Spiritualism!” concluded Mrs. Jencken.
On the next day Mrs. Jencken made the statement which appears in the following:
Mrs. Jencken was asked about the alleged spirit manifestations which have taken place in Carlyle’s old home at Chelsea, London, where she has lately resided. The English papers have been filled with stories, more or less sceptical, regarding these queer occurrences. Mrs. Jencken said: “All that took place there of that nature is utterly false. I haven’t the slightest idea that the noises which we heard in the house had any connection with Carlyle’s spirit. I certainly know that every so-called manifestation produced through me in London or anywhere else was a fraud. Many a time have I wept because when I was young and innocent I was brought into such a life. The time has now come for Maggie and I to set ourselves right before the world. Nobody knows at what moment either of us might be taken away. We ought not to leave this base fabric of deceit behind us unexposed.”
As may be seen, nothing could be stronger than the language employed in these interviews by both of the repentant sisters, in denouncing their former adhesion to a system of humbug and hypocrisy.