Fox sisters

© Celeste Elliot When the forests of Upstate New York are blanketed in orange and brown hues during the fall of Autumn leaves, there are few places more bewitching to escape for the weekend. But there is certainly no place quite like the enchanting hamlet of Lily Dale, NY, population: 275, where

Their seances with the departed launched a mass religious movement—and then one of them confessed that "it was common delusion"

Modern Spiritualism begun in 1848 with the phenomena at Hydesville, New York, however, the supernatural experiences of Emanuel Swedenborg in 1744, actually ushered in a new spiritual age.

Séances and spiritualists grew popular across the United States and Europe in the 19th century despite the skeptics.

Their seances with the departed launched a mass religious movement—and then one of them confessed that "it was common delusion"

Here is a newspaper article from 1897 commemorating the Fox Sisters and the birth of Spiritualism. I have followed the post with links to current articles on the subject: Hornsville Weekly Tribune, Hornsville, New York - 21 May 1897 They Were Nearly Mobbed in Rochester, and Their Seances Made a Tremendous Sensation--Proposition to Make a Spiritual Museum of the Old Fox Cottage Rappings Heard at Hydesville, N.Y., Forty-Nine Years Ago Almost unnoticed by the general public, prominent…

Free kindle book and epub digitized and proofread by Project Gutenberg.

Rochester Rappings: The Fox sisters were three sisters from New York who played an important role in the creation of Spiritualism: Leah (1831-1890), Margaret (also called Maggie) (1833–1893) and Kate (also called Catherine) Fox (1837–1892)