The history of modern spiritualism
The 31st march, 1848 marks the beginning of modern spiritualism
so what did occur on this date
The Hydesville rappings
Noises known as rappings were disturbing the fox family who had just moved into a small town called Hydesville in new york.
On the evening of 31st of march the noises became high pitched the fox family could not sleep.
The two daughters (kate and margaretta) clapped there hands and shouted to the noises.
They shouted "Mr splitfoot, do as i do" They clapped a number of times and were amazed to find that there clapping was echoed by a like number of raps.
Then they started to ask questions like there ages and these were given, Then they made soundless claps and these too were repeated.
And then they knew that who ever was there could see as well as hear.
Their mother tryed asking questions too such has how many children do i have and what are there ages,
She was given the right number of children she had and all there ages, she was also given the age of a past child she had had.
They then decided to work out a code such as one rap for no and two for yes
and a instigator of the raps were able to tell them that he was a pedlar named Charles B. Rosna who had been murdered by a man called John C. Bell
who was a former tenant of the house and his body had been buried in the cellar.
All of this was discovered to be true as in 1904 the remains of the pedlars body were recovered.
The full story was published in a non spiritual paper that year.
The Hydesville rappings established that,
it is possible to communicate with the spirits of those past,
the communications were made easier because of an understood code.