MANIFESTATION CABINETSĪfter first appearing on the séance scene in the 1850s, manifestation cabinets, or spirit cabinets, soon became a staple of the genre. One moment it was ludicrous, the next it was weird.' 2. The New York Herald wrote, 'There stood a black-robed, sharp-faced widow working her big toe and solemnly declaring that it was in this way she created the excitement that has driven so many persons to suicide or insanity. Rather, the girls produced the sounds themselves by manipulating the joints in their knuckles and toes.Īfter relying on the trick for decades, one of the sisters decided to reveal her fraud to a live audience by banging her bare toe against a wooden stool to show them how it was done. The 'ghosts' they corresponded with weren’t really ghosts at all, nor were they apples. During séances, they would recite the alphabet and pretend to wait for spirits to slowly spell out messages. The sisters used this concept as the basis for their medium act.

The Fox girls were indeed responsible for the rapping, but the source was actually apples they had tied with string and bounced against the floor of their bedroom. After their mother heard mysterious knocks coming from the walls and furniture of their home, she concluded the noise was metaphysical in nature. The famous Fox sisters had spirit rapping to thank for their careers. But knowing the behind-the-scenes secrets of séances doesn’t make them sound any less entertaining. These so-called communions with the dead have since generally been debunked as clever parlor tricks (thanks to skeptics like Harry Houdini).

Whether the medium performed at home or on stage, the chance to see them summon disembodied hands, decipher otherworldly messages, and belch up ectoplasm was considered quality entertainment back in the day. Today self-proclaimed psychics tend to get a bad rap, but during the late 19th and early 20th centuries they enjoyed celebrity status.

Ghost seance