Mediums Rare (2 page)

While not exactly an account of mediumship, it is interesting to note that many of the founders of the United States government were Masons. It has even been suggested that they received aid from some secret organization in Europe which helped to establish the United States for some specific purpose known only to an initiate few.

At any rate, the Great Seal of the United States is the signature of this organization and the unfinished pyramid with the All-Seeing Eye hovering over it, on the other side of the bill, is a symbol of the task to which the United States government was dedicated.

Analysis of the Great Seal reveals a mass of occult and Masonic symbols. The eagle was, as a matter of fact, a
phoenix
on the original design, with the Great Pyramid of Gizeh on the reverse side. On a colored sketch submitted by William Barton in 1783, an actual phoenix appears sitting on a nest of flames, a symbol of the new rising from the old.

Later, both of these illustrations were altered to what they are today. Benjamin Franklin thought the eagle was unworthy to be chosen as the emblem of a great, progressive nation, saying that it “was not even a bird of good moral character.” He suggested the turkey.

The significance of the mystical number thirteen is not limited to the number of the original colonies either. It appears frequently on the Great Seal as well. For instance, the sacred emblem which appears above the head of the eagle contains thirteen stars. The motto
E. Pluribus Unum
contains thirteen letters. So, too, does the description
Annuit Coeptis
on the reverse side of the bill. The eagle clutches, in its right talon, a branch bearing thirteen leaves and thirteen berries. And, in its left talon, it carries a sheaf of thirteen arrows. An interesting side-note to this is the fact that the head of the eagle faces
away
from the arrow of war, toward the branch of peace.

Then too, the face of the now unfinished pyramid, exclusive of the bottom panel with the date on it, consists of seventy-two stones arranged in thirteen rows.

Returning to mediumsbip.

It is generally accepted that the birth of Spiritualism (which was, in time, the origin of modern Parapsychology) took place in the home of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Fox in the year 1848.

March 31, 1848
Hydesville, New York

S
ince they’d moved into the house the previous December, noises had been bothering them.

The farm house was a small one, consisting of a single floor with several rooms, a cellar underneath it and a loft above.

Rappings and sounds like that of moving furniture had been heard time and again.

John David Fox and his wife had lit candles and moved around the house, searching every room.

They’d never discovered a source of the noises.

This night, they were worse than they had ever been, occurring in all parts of the house.

The couple even thought they heard footsteps in the pantry and Margaret Fox was sick with fear, convinced that some unhappy spirit haunted the house.

It had snowed that day and an icy wind was scouring the house. John Fox kept checking the sashes on the windows, thinking that they might be rattling to cause the sounds.

But the noises were taking place everywhere and both he and his wife were frightened for their two daughters, Margaret, ten, and Kate, seven; the two girls slept in the same room with them.

In an attempt to rationalize the fear they were experiencing, the girls had begun to attribute the noises to some mysterious, invisible entity named Mr. Splitfoot.

Their parents weren’t happy with this fancy but allowed it to persist since it seemed to ameliorate the girls’ reaction to the noises. And there was certainly no way they could afford to leave the house.

They would all have to make the best of this disturbing situation.

Mr. Fox had not yet retired that night; it wasn’t even seven o’clock. His wife lay awake in bed, her daughters lying equally awake in their adjoining bed.

The loud, rapping noises were almost constant now, sounding from every quarter of the house.

Once the beds both jarred, making Mrs. Fox and their daughters gasp in shock.

Abruptly, Kate, her body locked with dread, cried out impulsively, “Mr. Splitfoot, do as I do!” and suddenly began to clap her hands.

The noises seemed to imitate and follow her until she stopped.

A heavy silence fell, mother and daughters wide-eyed, heart beats thumping.

Then Margaret cried out brazenly, “No, do just as
I
do!” and clapped her hands four times, calling, “Count one, two, three, four!”

Four rapping sounds immediately followed.

The younger Margaret shivered, pulling up the covers to her chin, her face gone pale.

What had she
done?

She caught her breath, glancing sharply at her younger sister as Kate spoke, saying, “Mother, I know what it is. Tomorrow is April-fool day and it’s somebody trying to fool us.”

Mrs. Fox felt otherwise, convinced that someone haunted their house.

Her voice trembled while she asked, as proof, for the spirit to rap out the ages of her children.

Ten distinct rap sounds in the small room. Silence for a moment or two. Then seven raps. Kate whimpered,
“Oh.”

Silence. Then three more raps were heard. Mrs. Fox sobbed frightenedly.

There’d been another daughter who had died at the age of three.

“Is this a human being who answers my questions so correctly?” she asked in a feeble voice.

Silence. Her two girls clung to one another.

Mrs. Fox’s throat moved as she swallowed with difficulty. “Is it a
spirit?
” she asked. “If it is, make two raps.”

Two rapping noises sounded instantly, causing them to cry out.

Mr. Fox was in the same room now, listening, his expression tense.

“If it’s an
injured
spirit, make two raps,” said his wife.

The two raps were so loud, the house trembled from the impact. “Dear God,” whispered John Fox.

Then he cried out, “Will you continue to rap if I call in my neighbors so they can hear it too?!”

Again, the house shook with the violence of the answering raps.

At half past seven, Mr. Fox brought back their nearest neighbor, Mrs. Redfield.

Having heard his rambling account of what had happened, Mrs. Redfield was prepared to laugh, thinking it a joke.

But the moment she saw Dr. Fox and the two girls in their beds, pale with fright, she realized that something serious was happening.

“Ask it who it is,” Mrs. Fox told her. She had already done so and wanted to find out if Mrs. Redfield got the same answers she did.

Mrs. Redfield began to do this, asking one rap for yes and two for no.

By this gradual method, she discovered that the spirit was that of a man aged thirty-one, a peddler who had been murdered in this house, his remains buried in the cellar.

It was precisely what Mrs. Fox had been told by the rapping noises.

Mrs. Redfield then went out and got Mr. Fuesler and his wife who, in turn, got Mr. and Mrs. Hyde and Mr. and Mrs. Jewell.

All of them asked the same questions using one rap for yes and two for no.

The answers remained the same. A man. Thirty-one. Peddler. Murdered. Remains buried in the cellar.

The questioning continued through the night, long after the two girls had fallen asleep from exhaustion.

The story grew more bizarrely complicated by the hour.

The murder was committed in the east bedroom five years earlier.

On a Tuesday at midnight.

The victim had had his throat cut with a butcher knife after which his body had been dragged through the pantry and down the stairway to the cellar where it was buried ten feet under the ground.

The murder had been committed to get the man’s money. Five hundred dollars in all.

They started digging in the cellar the next night but soon had to give up because they came to water. They could not resume until summer.

Then, at a depth of five feet, they found a wooden plank. Beneath the plank was charcoal and lime, hair and bones.

Doctors pronounced them to be the remains of a human skeleton.

Soon afterward, the phenomena assumed the character of a full-fledged haunting.

The sound of a death struggle was heard. A hideous throat gurgling, then dragging of a body across the floor of the house.

The sound of digging in the cellar.

Mrs. Fox’s hair began to turn white and, at last, the family had to leave the house.

The raps continued after they were gone.

One night, more than three hundred people conversed with the invisible entity.