Both the Hydesville and the Stratford specters, and thousands of others who manifested themselves throughout America, claimed and were believed to be spirits of the dead, and despite the rude, lewd, and downright demonic nature of much of their communications, they became venerated by millions of people eager for proof of life after death. The faithful turned a blind eye to the fact that Kate Fox’s first words to the pioneer poltergeist at Hydesville were “Do as I do, Mr. Splitfoot!” (i.e., the devil) or that that first manifestation had commenced on the eve of the most favorable day of the year for elfin activity. Clergymen who suggested that the spirits were devils in disguise were ignored or ridiculed. Their congregations—and often they themselves—had long since ceased believing in the active presence of nonhuman spiritual beings within the spiritual world. They reasoned that these phantasmic folk must be spirits of the dead, and the more physical their manifestations—moving tables, playing musical instruments, oozing ectoplasmic limbs, producing bouquets of flowers, and other such corny parlor tricks—the more credence they were given.
The year 1850 was surely the most important year in the growth of American Spiritualism, for the publicity generated by the Hydesville and Stratford poltergeists caused an explosion of mediumistic phenomena from coast to coast. “Experimental” Spiritualist circles formed in Boston (where there was estimated to be over a thousand mediums by 1850), Philadelphia, Providence, all the major cities in New York State, all the New England states, Cincinnati, Memphis, St. Louis, California, Oregon, Texas. All the way into Spiritualism’s resurgence in the 1920s, New York City would play a major role in the elucidation and dissemination of its credo.
In America, every day of the year became April Fool’s Day for the liberated sprites and poltergeists. The Stratford shenanigans were just a small sampling of their kaleidoscopic circus of tomfoolery. Puritanical matrons manipulating Ouija boards were made to utter the foulest of oaths. Greedy fortune hunters were promised gold and silver in a thousand secret locales. Would-be prophets were tantalized with authentic tidbits of advantageous foreknowledge, then sucker-punched with ersatz revelations guaranteed to be passed on to the multitudes. Earnest seekers of spiritual truths were hoodwinked with bizarre celestial untruths; the planetary fantasies of Andrew Jackson Davis were repeated in a hundred varieties by unsuspecting Spiritualist mediums. Masquerading elementals donned the personas of every historical celebrity imaginable, from George Washington to Alexander the Great, proclaiming all sorts of twaddle as the most sacred scripture. The Frankenstein monster of Spiritualist manifestations was a dubious bargain made by the United States just at the moment when the country’s own national science was maturing into a daylight endeavor capable of penetrating nature with new power.