Mrs fox and her three daughters continued to hold the

abundant. Mrs. Fox and her three daughters continued to hold the
place of honour in the spiritualistic world, and gave exhibitions in
many large towns. In 1850, while they were at Buffalo, some
professors of the Buffalo University showed that the raps could be
produced by the medium's joints, and shortly afterwards Mrs.
Norman Culver, a relative by marriage of the Fox family, declared
that Margaretta Fox had shown her how the rappings were obtained
by means of the joints. She also alleged that Catherine Fox had
told her that in a seance at Rochester where the medium's ankles
were held to prevent fraud, a Dutch servant maid had rapped in
the cellar on a signal from the medium. This latter statement was
hotly denied by the spiritualists, but no reputation was attempted
with regard to the other allegations. Many mediums confessed that
they had resorted to trickery, but the tide of popular favour in
America held to the actuality of the manifestations. These, as time
went on, became more varied and complex. Table - turning and
tilting (q.v.) in part replaced the simpler phenomena of raps.
Playing on musical instruments by invisible hands, " direct " spirit
writing, bell - ringing, levitation, and materialisation of spirit
hands, are some of the phenomena which were witnessed and
vouched for by such distinguished sitters as judge Edmonds, the
Hon N. P. Tallmadge, Governor of Wisconsin, and William Lloyd
Garrison. We find the levitation of the medium Daniel D. Home
(q.v.) recorded at an early stage in his career. Slate - writing (q.v.)
and playing on musical instruments were also feats practised by
the spirits who frequented Koon's " spirit - room " (q.v.) in Dover,
Athens County, Ohio. At Keokuk, in Iowa, in 1854, two mediums
spoke in tongues identified on somewhat insufficient data, as "
Swiss, " Latin, and Indian languages, and henceforward trance -
speaking in their native language and in foreign tongues was much
practised by mediums. The recognised foreign tongues included
Latin and Greek French, German, Spanish, Italian, Chinese and
Gaelic, but generally the trance utterances, when they were not in
English, were not recognised definitely as any known language,
and frequently the " spirits " themselves interpreted the " tongue."
The latter phenomena are evidently akin to the early outpourings
of the " possessed " or the articulate but meaningless fluency of
ecstatics during a religious epidemic. There have been cases,
however, where persons in a state of exaltation have spoken
fluently in a language of which they know but little in their normal
state. Many of the " spirit " writings were signed with he names of
great people - particularly Franklin, Swedenborg, Plato, Aristotle,
St. John and St. Paul. Trance lecturing before audiences was also
practised, books of inspirational utterances were published, and
poetry and drawings produced in abundance. These automatic
productions had a character of their own - they were vague, high -
sounding, incoherent, and distinctly reminiscent. In cases where
they displayed even a fair amount of merit, as in the poems of T. L.