Nineteenth Century America Was an Intellectually Turbulent Time
Religion and rationality, faith and science, clashed as never before in nineteenth century America. It was an intellectually turbulent time, in which new ideas such as the theory of evolution challenged long held religious assumptions. Against that backdrop, many turned to the supernatural for reassurance and comfort. Mediums met the desire for the supernatural with popular performances that included ghostly materialization, ectoplasm, table rapping, and other spooky stuff. People ate it up. Audiences ranged from big enough to fill huge theaters, eager for a spectacle, to small ones at intimate private gatherings of bereaved family members and friends, desperate to commune with a recently deceased loved one.
Needless to say, mediums had no ability to actually communicate with the dead. Seances were either outright scams by cynical charlatans and con artists who exploited the gullible and the grieving, or pious fraud by spiritualists who sought to enhance faith in their belief by any means available. It started in Upstate New York, in 1848. There, two young girls, Maggie and Katie Fox, convinced their parents and neighbors that they could communicate with the dead, who answered questions with a series of knocks. Of course, the knocks were not actually made by the deceased, but by the girls.