A fascinating story of spirits and conjurors, skeptics and converts
in the second half of nineteenth century America viewed through the
lives of Kate and Maggie Fox, the sisters whose purported
communication with the dead gave rise to the Spiritualism movement
- and whose recanting forty years later is still shrouded in
mystery.
In March of 1848, Kate and Maggie Fox - sisters aged 11 and 14 -
anxiously reported to a neighbor that they had been hearing
strange, unidentified sounds in their house. From a sequence of
knocks and rattles translated by the young girls as a "voice from
beyond," the Modern Spiritualism movement was born.
"Talking to the Dead" follows the fascinating story of the two
girls who were catapulted into an odd limelight after communicating
with spirits that March night. Within a few years, tens of
thousands of Americans were flocking to seances. An international
movement followed. Yet thirty years after those first knocks, the
sisters shocked the country by denying they had ever contacted
spirits. Shortly after, the sisters once again changed their story
and reaffirmed their belief in the spirit world. Weisberg traces
not only the lives of the Fox sisters and their family (including
their mysterious Svengali-like sister Leah) but also the social,
religious, economic and political climates that provided the
breeding ground for the movement. While this is a thorough,
compelling overview of a potent time in US history, it is also an
incredible ghost story.
An entertaining read - a story of spirits and conjurors,
skeptics and converts - "Talking to the Dead" is full of emotion
and surprise. Yet it will also provoke questions that were being
asked in the 19thcentury, and are still being asked today - how do
we know what we know, and how secure are we in our knowledge?
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