Parlor Games Trivia Quiz

Answer: Rapping in code

Kate and Maggie Fox told family members and friends that they were able to communicate with the alleged peddler's spirit by asking it questions to which it would respond with either one rap for "yes" or two raps for "no." The combination of the Fox sisters' good looks and their apparent spiritual gifts made national and world headlines. True believers and newspaper reporters descended en masse on the Fox family's rented cottage on the outskirts of Rochester, New York, hoping for a personal glimpse of the girls at work. Local law officials even dug up the cellar, searching for a body, but all they found was a tin box and a bone of indeterminate origin. Years later, the Fox sisters were still claiming to be in touch with spirits, making their living by holding seances all over the country.

At one point, a down and out Kate told a reporter that she and Maggie had faked their infamous 1848 rappings by cracking their knuckle and toe joints, but she later recanted that "confession" on her death bed, claiming that the reporter had bribed her with alcohol.

Not surprisingly, she died of complications from alcoholism.

Answer: Mr. Sludge

Like many old school mediums, Home (he pronounced it "hume", like the philosopher) derived much of his income from the generosity of rich patrons. Home, a handsome, red-haired man who enjoyed the finer amenities of life, eventually struck the jackpot when he married a Russian noblewoman who kept him in grand style.

But along the way, he had a brief but intense friendship with Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who was absolutely convinced of his authenticity. While there is no evidence of a physical liaison between the two, Browning's husband Robert despised Home and wrote "Mr. Sludge" as a condemnation of what he considered the medium's chicanery and opportunistic relationships with well-connected female patrons.

Answer: Thallium

Florence Cook ("Florrie" to friends and family) was a young woman from a working class family who eked out a living holding seances during the mid-to-late 1800s. Her specialty involved entering a wooden "spirit cabinet" and then reemerging in the guise of a spirit.

It's hard to believe that 19th century seance-goers could have been so easily fooled by a pretty girl traipsing through a darkened room in her underclothes, but many of them were. One exception was a man who jumped up in the middle of a seance and grabbed Florrie round the waist, at which point she cried, "Stop, you are killing my medium!" The incident nearly wrecked her chequered career, but then she met the esteemed and brilliant Dr. Robert Crookes, who had a professed interest in paranormal phenomena. Crookes, a married man and the father of several children, was captivated by Florrie's looks and (I guess) charm and soon began an affair with her, during which time he conducted a series of "private experiments" to test her mediumistic skills.

He wrote several articles proclaiming her a genuine medium before the ungrateful Florrie ditched him for a sailor and went off to hold more fake seances throughout England and Europe. She died in her early fifties in the 1890s, succumbing to pneumonia while working as a prostitute in Battersea. Crookes went on to become even more celebrated and lauded by his fellows, who apparently decided that his dalliance with Florence Cookes did not deter from his genius as a physicist. He died in 1919.

Answer: true

Jeanne Dixon was THE medium to consult during the 1960s and 70s, during which time she became a household name due to her well-publicized annual predictions in "The National Enquirer" and other periodicals. According to apocryphal accounts from biographers and journalists, Ms. Dixon warned JFK not to go to Dallas just before his fatal trip to that city in November of 1963. Around the same time, JFK reportedly told some close associates that he had a "funny feeling" about going to Dallas.

But of course he went anyway and we all know what happened when he did.

Answer: Go into trance

Known to the world as "The Sleeping Prophet", Edgar Cayce's astoundingly accurate medical readings are on record in the Edgar Cayce Library in Virginia Beach, Virginia. When awake, Cayce was a simple, self-educated man who subscribed to the tenets of mainstream Christianity and reread the Bible every year. Cayce predicted many world changes that he said would take place in the latter part of the 20th century, such as weather alterations, major earthquakes, and the discovery of Atlantis.

Many websites are devoted to listing his predictions and chronicling which ones have "come true" thus far.

Answer: Mary Todd Lincoln

Following the death of her young son Willie, Mary Todd Lincoln began holding regular seances in the White House, an activity that dismayed many of her husband's close political associates. They were even more dismayed when President Lincoln consented to take part in some of the seances as a concession to his wife's desperate attempts to communicate with her dead child. Mrs. Lincoln had always possessed a superstitious streak and was known for her often morbid interpretations of dreams and other events surrounding her husband's presidency.

She reportedly predicted that he would not complete his second term in office after he told her that he had dreamed of seeing a double reflection of himself in the mirror, with the second reflection markedly fainter than the first.

Answer: Trumpet

The infamous spirit trumpet is still being used in many modern seances. A medium or her client simply asks a question of the spirit world and then places the trumpet against one ear and waits for a response. In more dramatic instances, the trumpet will reportedly fly around the room as the spirit speaks, supposedly under the power of the spirit itself.

Answer: Katie King

Medium-impersonated versions of "Katie King" showed up at countless seances in the 19th century, in England, the United States, and even in Mexico. Florrie Cook, the infamous medium who had an affair with scientist Robert Crookes, was especially known for impersonating the popular Katie at seances. Perhaps some of Katie King's appeal came from the fact that she was supposed to be the long-dead daughter of a long-dead pirate who only wanted to bring help and comfort to the living. If you do some "Googling", you may be able to find the famous 1870s photograph of Florrie Cook in her "Katie King" costume.

When the photo was taken, many spiritualist still believed that Katie King was real.

Answer: The Woman In White

"The Woman In White" by Wilkie Collins may be about a supposed ghost, but none of the characters ever bother to consult a medium in order to find out for sure. Wilkie Collins was a close friend of Charles Dickens, who, of course, wrote one of the most well-known "ghost stories" of all time. "A Christmas Carol."

Answer: Mae West

Mae West, the prototype for the blonde bombshell movie stars who came after her, was smart, talented, and totally committed to her belief in spiritualism. Although she cultivated an on-screen persona that celebrated sex, bawdiness and materialistic pursuits, she was a deeply spiritual person who belonged to a Spiritualist church and attended seances on a regular basis.