Short True History Story - The Hydesville Knockings
Original words by Emma Hardinge Britten, 1865.
Abridged and modernised by Perry Rabbitts, 2006
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Pause in thought with me for a while and remember that quiet home in an obscure village where lived the family with whom the first weird phenomena, since called Modern Spiritualism, originated. It was a simple family in Rochester, Hydesville, New York State, America, the Fox family where the first highly publicised case of spiritual manifestation occurred, and where clear evidence came of an invisible spiritual intelligence. |
This is a brief story explaining how modern Spiritualism started in Hydesville, USA. If you are a speaker in Spiritualists churches then this story will make an interesting reading for the service. |
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In that place was produced constantly repeating
knockings, with other mysterious sounds, and occasional movements of
furniture of a distressing and ghostly character. The harassed family of the
‘haunted dwelling’ summoned to their aid the priest to exorcise, and the
magistrate to compel the invisible tormentor into silence, but these failed
and the ghostly presence persisted. At first the sounds were merely slight knockings which might have been produced by the wind or falling rain. But the sounds changed, and as the weeks passed on, their recurrence became expected by the afflicted family, the sounds became loud knocks and were accompanied by noises of a far more fearful character. Ghostly voices of someone in mortal pain were heard, of someone in a prolonged violent death-struggle, followed by the smothered cry of a departing soul. Fearfully, and terribly rang those sounds, night after night, in the ears of that frightened and helpless family. And yet these fearful happenings were the first tokens of the working of a spiritual communication system. What did the world do in this case? Did it come to help the afflicted family? No; it pointed the finger of scorn at them, and left them alone in their house of fear; it left them alone in superstitious fear with the soul of the murdered dead. But God was with them! He came in the inspiration that brought to their aid a plain and honest farmer who using common sense listened to the sounds and said, “This invisible knocker can see, for it copies what we do by knocks.” Again the farmer said, “This invisible power can hear, for it listens to our speech, and answers again in signal knocks.” At last, after the long and weary months of fear, after terror which you can scarcely imagine, this farmer inspired by the God he trusted, at last he stood in the presence of this invisible knocker, and listened to the strange and fearful noises. Then he took a lamp in his hand and followed those sounds down into the vault below the house, and there he prayed. He prayed for light and strength, guidance and inspiration, and when the prayer was done, the communication signals answered him, and inspiration came to that humble farmer. - “It is a telegraph”, a system of communication between this world and the next. And for the first time upon this earth, the knocks were recognised as signals relating to the alphabet and spelling out the knocker’s name and the history of his tragic death. Oh! Scorners, sceptics, unbelievers, could you have heard the hallelujah of joy that went up through heaven. Could you have felt that rejoicing of fathers, mothers, friends and great master minds who had waited, through the ages, for the fullness of time, to do God’s bidding in the working of this new spiritual telegraph, a system of communication on which for ever and for ever bright ministering angels can pass knowledge up and down amongst men! Could you have heard this grand chorus of joy you would have hushed your tones of mockery and lifted your faces in celebration of God’s divine governance. This is how the whole movement of Modern Spiritualism started. By simple alphabetic signal knocks, by fearful suffering of but a simple family in Hydesville and by the inspiration of a humble farmer. But “God chooses the foolish things of Earth to confound the wise, and God chooses the weak things of the world to confound the mighty.” In future ages, men will blush with shame to read that scientists and priests criticise spirit communication and attempt to drown out its teachings. Teachings which are intended to enable every living soul to know for himself that God, His ministering angels and a spiritual world exists in reality not just for a few but for every living soul. |
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