Katie King (spirit)
Encyclopedia
Spirit
The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...
. The question of whether the spirit was real or a fraud was a notable public controversy of the mid-1870s.
The spirit was said to have appeared first in 1871 in séance
Séance
A séance is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word "séance" comes from the French word for "seat," "session" or "sitting," from the Old French "seoir," "to sit." In French, the word's meaning is quite general: one may, for example, speak of "une séance de cinéma"...
s conducted by Florence Cook in London, and later in 1874-1875 in New York in séances held by the medium
Mediumship
Mediumship is described as a form of communication with spirits. It is a practice in religious beliefs such as Spiritualism, Spiritism, Espiritismo, Candomblé, Voodoo and Umbanda.- Concept :...
s Jennie Holmes and her husband Nelson Holmes.
Katie King was believed by Spiritualists to be the daughter of John King, a spirit control of the 1850s through the 1870s that appeared in many séances involving materialized spirits. A spirit control is a powerful and communicative spirit that organizes the appearance of other spirits at a séance. John King claimed to be the spirit of Henry Morgan
Henry Morgan
Admiral Sir Henry Morgan was an Admiral of the Royal Navy, a privateer, and a pirate who made a name for himself during activities in the Caribbean, primarily raiding Spanish settlements...
, the buccaneer (Doyle 1926: volume 1, 241, 277).
Florence Cook
Between 1871 and 1874, Sir William CrookesWilliam Crookes
Sir William Crookes, OM, FRS was a British chemist and physicist who attended the Royal College of Chemistry, London, and worked on spectroscopy...
investigated the preternatural phenomena produced by Spiritualist mediums. He described the conditions he imposed on mediums as follows: "It must be at my own house, and my own selection of friends and spectators, under my own conditions, and I may do whatever I like as regards apparatus" (Doyle 1926: volume 1, 177).
At Hackney
Hackney (parish)
Hackney was a parish in the historic county of Middlesex. The parish church of St John-at-Hackney was built in 1789, replacing the nearby former 16th century parish church dedicated to St Augustine . The original tower of that church was retained to hold the bells until the new church could be...
on 9 December 1873, lawyer William Volckman attended a séance held by Florence Cook, during which Katie King materialized and, as was customary, held the hands of participants. Suspicious of the spirit's similarity with Cook, Volckman seized the spirit's hand and waist, accusing it of being the medium masquerading as her ghost. The spirit was wrestled from Volckman's grasp by other participants and returned to a cabinet from which Cook emerged some minutes later. Volckman published his opinion that the spirit was a masquerade by Cook: supporters of Miss Cook denounced Volckman on the grounds that he had broken his agreement to proper etiquette required in the séance, thus negating his credibility as an investigator. Moreover it was argued that since spirits borrowed energy and matter from their medium, it was not surprising that Katie King resembled Cook. Despite the defense of their position, Cook and her supporters were hurt by this incident, and sought greater evidence to support their position. To this endeavour, they turned to Crookes, who was a prominent and respected scientist (Noakes, 130-1).
A 15 year old Cook, alone in Crookes' house with Crookes' friends and family as witnesses, was said to have materialized the spirit of Katie King, who walked about, talked, allowed herself to be weighed and measured, and even held the family's baby (Doyle 1926: volume 1, 241). The sessions were held in the dark, because Spiritualists believe that materialization requires very dim surroundings to succeed, though occasionally some red light was used and some photographs were taken. As is apparently typical of materialized spirits, Katie's exact height and weight varied, though Katie was always taller than Florence Cook, with a larger face, and different hair and skin. According to those present, the two were both visible at the same moments, so that Florence could not have assumed the role of the spirit (Doyle 1926: volume 1, 235-240).
Crookes' report, published in 1874, contained his assertion that Florence Cook, as well as the mediums Kate Fox
Fox sisters
The Fox sisters were three sisters from New York who played an important role in the creation of Spiritualism. The three sisters were Leah Fox , Margaret Fox and Kate Fox . The two younger sisters used "rappings" to convince their much older sister and others that they were communicating with...
and Daniel Dunglas Home
Daniel Dunglas Home
Daniel Dunglas Home was a Scottish physical medium with the reported ability to levitate to a variety of heights, speak with the dead, and to produce rapping and knocks in houses at will. His biographer Peter Lamont opines that he was one of the most famous men of his era...
, were producing genuine preternatural phenomena (Crookes 1874). The publication caused an uproar, and his testimony about Katie King was considered the most outrageous and sensational part of the report. Crookes very nearly lost his Fellowship at the Royal Society, and did not again engage in Spiritualist research (Doyle 1926: volume 1, 169).
Jennie and Nelson Holmes
After news of Katie King had spread abroad, the American mediums Jennie and Nelson Holmes also claimed to have materialized her. Robert Dale OwenRobert Dale Owen
Robert Dale Owen was a longtime exponent in his adopted United States of the socialist doctrines of his father, Robert Owen, as well as a politician in the Democratic Party.-Biography:...
, the politician and avowed Spiritualist, had experienced this materialization and wrote about it in an article for the Atlantic Monthly in January 1875.
Just as the article was going to press, however, a woman named Eliza White stepped forward and claimed to have masqueraded as Katie. White's face matched that of "Katie King" in photographs sold by the Holmeses and their agents. Both the Atlantic Monthly and Owen admitted in public to being duped. Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
maintains that this "exposure" did more damage to Spiritualism than any other exposure of the period (Doyle 1926: volume 1, 269-277).
Investigations conducted by leading Spiritualist Henry Steel Olcott
Henry Steel Olcott
Colonel Henry Steel Olcott was an American military officer, journalist, lawyer and the co-founder and first President of the Theosophical Society....
in 1875 re-established the credibility of the Holmeses in the eyes of many Spiritualists. The story eventually accepted by most Spiritualists was that Eliza White had been hired to pose as Katie King for a photograph to sell to the public. The Holmeses had not wanted to photograph the real Katie King, since bright light would have ruined the materialization. Once involved, Eliza White first extorted money from the Holmeses, and then sold the story to the press (Doyle 1926: volume 1, 269-277).