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PEOPLE 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 Other World. 
 
 BY / 
 
 HENRY S. OLCOTT, 
 
 PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED BY ALFRED KAPPES, AND T. W. WILLIAMS. 
 
 " We have set it down as a law to ourselves to examine things to the 
 bottom, and not to receive upon credit, or reject upon improbabilities, 
 until there hath passed a due examination." — Lord BACON. 
 
 vi 
 
 ISSUED BY SUBSCRIPTION ONLY, AND NOT FOR BALK IN THE BOOK-STORES. 
 DENTS OP ANY STATES DESIRINO A COPY. SHOULD ADDRESS THE 
 PUBLISHERS, AND AN AGENT WILL CALL UPON THEM. 
 
 _HARTFORD, CONN.: 
 AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 
 1875 . 
 
 17 
 
ft^ V2.S \ 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 
 
 Henry S. Olcott. 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. 
 
The Author 
 
 DEDICATES THIS WORK 
 TO 
 
 ALFRED R. WALLACE, F. R. S. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION," ETC. 
 AND TO 
 
 WILLIAM CROOKES, F. R. S. 
 
 DISCOVERER OF THE METAL, THALLIUM, 
 
 To mark his admiration of the moral courage they have recently 
 displayed, in the investigation of the phenomena called spiritual : 
 a sentiment which he holds in common with many thousands of his 
 fellow-countrymen. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The volume which .is now laid before the reader will 
 be found divided into Two Parts ; of which the First is 
 devoted to a detailed description of the strange things 
 seen, heard, and felt by the author at the Eddy Home- 
 stead, in the township of Chittenden, Vermont; and the 
 Second, to a report of a series of original investigations 
 made by him in the city of Philadelphia, into the alleged 
 materializations of John and Katie King, under test con- 
 ditions ; to an account of the Compton " transfiguration ;" 
 and to a copious Bibliography of the Occult Sciences. 
 
 It has been no part of the author's plan to discuss 
 modern Spiritualism in its moral aspect ; but, on the 
 contrary, to treat its phenomena only as involving a 
 scientific question which presses upon us for instant 
 attention. It is written neither as a defence of, or attack 
 upon Spiritualism, or Spiritualists. It is a truthful narra- 
 tive of what befell in the Eddy Homestead, from the 
 latter part of August to the first week in December, 1874. 
 It was observed, by a leading New York journal, of the 
 first, and by no means the most interesting letter written 
 by the author from that place, that it was " as marvelous 
 a story as any to be found in History." Its interest lay in the 
 striking and highly sensational manifestations, of alleged 
 spiritual origin, which it described ; the equal of which 
 will be found in every chapter of this book. 
 
 Twenty-seven years have elapsed since the Rochester 
 rappings attracted the notice of the world, and we are 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 apparently not much nearer a scientific demonstration of 
 their cause than we were then. Such consideration as 
 men of scientific training have bestowed upon the ever- 
 varying forms of manifestation, has been mainly of a 
 desultory character ; and, while numerous converts to the 
 new faith have been made among this class, the great 
 body of their colleagues have held themselves aloof from 
 the subject, as if it were something to be avoided as 
 subversive of the established, and hence respectable, 
 order of things. 
 
 As early as 1857, the Faculty of Harvard University 
 pronounced the opinion that "any connection with spirit- 
 ualistic circles, so called, corrupts the morals, and 
 degrades the intellect ; " and they even had the 
 effrontery to say that they deemed it " their solemn 
 duty to warn the community against this contaminating 
 influence, which surely tends to lessen the truth of man, 
 and the purity of woman." (!) In 1869. we find so little 
 progress made that Mr. Huxley, one of the first scientific 
 men of England, writes to the London Dialectical 
 Society that he neither has the time to devote to art 
 investigation of the subject, nor does it even interest him. 
 " The only case of ' Spiritualism,' " says Mr. Huxley, 
 " I ever had the opportunity of examining into for 
 myself, was as gross an imposture as ever came under my 
 notice." The average reader will, of course, see the 
 syllogism : Mr. Huxley never saw but one case of 
 ' Spiritualism ' ; that case proved a gross fraud, and no 
 Spiritualism ; therefore, Spiritualism is a fraud ! This is 
 given as a fair specimen of the self-complacent disdain 
 with which our scientific men view the question of the 
 day. The American Association devoted hours of its 
 Hartford meeting, last summer, to a discussion upon the 
 social habits of the tumble-bug, and to the important 
 fact that the Saraccnia variolaris (pitcher-plant) catches 
 bugs ; but the members have no time to waste in investi- 
 gating the astounding phenomenon of "materialization," 
 the demonstration of whose verity would not only prove 
 the immortality of the soul of man, but, as the Scientific 
 American recently observed : 
 
 " If true, it will become the one grand event of the world's his- 
 tory ; it will give an imperishable lustre of glory to the Nineteenth 
 Century. Its discoverer will have no rival in renown, and his name 
 will be written high above any other. ... If the pretensions 
 of Spiritualism have a rational foundation, no more important work 
 has been offered to men of Science than their verification." 
 
Vi PREFACE. 
 
 Mr. Crookes, after completing his first series of experi- 
 ments with the medium Home, filed his papers with 
 Professor Stokes and Professor Sharpey, the two secre- 
 taries of the Royal Society, June 15th, 1871. The 
 behavior of those gentlemen was what might have been 
 expected. The first impulse was to rid themselves of it; 
 the second, to smother it. These proving unavailing, 
 they gave it the cold shoulder in a " Report on Mr. 
 Crookes' Paper," of date August 7th, 1871, in which the 
 writer, Professor Stokes, says : 
 
 " I don't see much use discussing the thing in the sections* crowded 
 as we already are ; but if a small number of persons in whom the 
 public would feel confidence, choose to volunteer to act as members 
 of a committee for investigating the subject, I don't see any objec- 
 tion to appointing such committee. / have heard too much of the 
 tricks of Spiritualists to make me willing to give my time to such a 
 committee myself." 
 
 Now this is the Committee that the author of this 
 work had in view when it was begun. His aim has 
 been to gather together into its pages, such a number 
 of facts observed by him at Chittenden and Philadel- 
 phia, as may induce a few men ' in whom the public 
 would feel confidence' to volunteer and form a commit- 
 tee to take up a philosophical inquiry into the 
 phenomena, and pursue it until the now occult force 
 behind them shall be discovered and demonstrated. 
 He is not without hope that his object will be attained, 
 for he is in receipt of information going to show that 
 the subject is now the burden of correspondence 
 between professors in certain universities The atten- 
 tion of the scientific body is, for the first time in 
 twenty years, seriously attracted, and we will not have 
 long to wait before the debates of the American and 
 British Associations will be devoted to worthier 
 problems than some that now vex them. 
 
 How some of the "crowding in the sections" is 
 caused, may be learned by any one who will look at 
 the Association's volumes of Transactions. These, for 
 instance, among many others of like commanding 
 importance, will be found in the Report for 1871, the 
 most recent volume at hand : A Paper " On the 
 ciliated condition of the inner layer of the blastoderm 
 in the ova of birds," by B .T. Lonne ; "The minute 
 anatomy of the stem of the screw pine (Pandanus utilis)," 
 by Prof. Dyer ; " On the Essential oil of orange peel," 
 by Dr. Wright and C. H. Piesse ; " On a fat woman 
 
PREFACE. vil 
 
 exhibiting in London," by Sir D. Gibb ; " On Conser- 
 vation of bowlders," by E. Milne-Home; "On the 
 contents of a hyena's den, etc.," by Rev. W. S. Symonds. 
 
 At the Hartford meetingof our American Association, 
 besides the nonsensical debates upon the fly-catching 
 flower, and the social habits of the tumble-dung beetle, 
 the intellects of the members were taxed to consider how 
 the lobster {Homarus vulgaris, — to be entirely respect- 
 ful), casts its shell ; the nature of the generative 
 organs of the shark; a new way of illustrating the 
 vibration of organ-pipes; the wings of Pterodactyls; 
 a notice of a pair of trap-door spiders; how the young 
 birds peck out of the shell ; and the wonderful fact that 
 a louse was used, in the Dismal Swamp, as a compass 
 by a surveying-party ; that creature, or, at any rate, the 
 one in the Swamp, having the habit of turning its head 
 to the North, under all circumstances. 
 
 Nice subjects, these, to be used as excuses for 
 declining to observe and analyze the facts of modern 
 Spiritualism ! How much more important to Science 
 to know about lobsters and lice, orange-peel and fat 
 women, blastoderms and hyenas' dens, than to explain 
 how the law of gravity can be temporarily neutralized 
 by some other, and unknown, force; how "death does 
 not kill a man ;" how the resurrected spirit can reclothe 
 itself with an evanescent, material form, by the power 
 of its will over the sublimated earth-essences, suspended, 
 invisible, in the air ; and what are the occult laws by 
 which the pulse of this shadowy body can be made to 
 beat, the lungs to respire, the lips to speak words 
 thought by the mind within the frail tenement, which 
 waits only the further exercise of its creator's will to 
 redissolve into the impalpable atoms of which it was, 
 a moment before, composed ! 
 
 Much as the author desires to see this subject inquired 
 into by men of scientific attainments, he could regard 
 it as only a misfortune if they should set out with a 
 disposition to prescribe impossible conditions. Before 
 they reach the point where they would have the right 
 to dictate their own terms, it would be necessary for 
 them to make many observations, collect many data, 
 and inform themselves about many things of which 
 they are necessarily ignorant. They should realize the 
 fact, succintly stated by Mr. Crookes, that Psychology 
 is a branch of science as yet almost entirely unexplored, 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 to the neglect of which is to be attributed the strange 
 fact that not only the spiritual phenomena, but also the 
 nerve or psychic, force, as it has been termed by that 
 gentleman, "has remained untested, unexamined and 
 almost unrecognized." 
 
 Mr. Alfred R. Wallace, to whose eminent attainments 
 as a scientific man the British Association has paid its 
 hearty tribute, observes, in his pamphlet entitled " A 
 defence of Modern Spiritualism," that : 
 
 " The discussion in the Pall Mall Gazette in 1868, and a consider- 
 able private correspondence, indicate that scientific men almost 
 invariably assume that, in this inquiry, they should be permitted, at 
 the very outset, to impose conditions ; and if, under such conditions, 
 nothing happens, they consider it a proof of imposture or delusion. 
 But they well know that, in all other branches of research, Nature, 
 not they, determines the essential conditions, without a compliance 
 with which no experiment will succeed. These conditions have to 
 be learnt by a patient questioning of Nature, and they are different 
 for each branch of science. How much more may they be expected 
 to differ in an inquiry which deals with subtle forces of the nature of 
 which the physicist is wholly and absolutely ignorant ! To ask to be 
 allowed to deal with these unknown phenomena as he has hitherto 
 dealt with known phenomena, is practically to prejudge the question, 
 since it assumes that both are governed by the same laws." 
 
 The researches of Professor Hare, Judge Edmonds, 
 Mr. Crookes, Mr. Wallace, Sergeant Cox, Dr. Guppy, the 
 astronomer Flammarion, and many others, prove that 
 perfect test conditions are attainable ; but, at the same 
 time, they show that the occult forces which play a part 
 in the production of these phenomena will not subject 
 themselves to the same identical limitations as chemical 
 experiments, or others with which the scientific world is 
 already familiar. Each has its own laws, and each 
 demands of the student a line of research peculiar to 
 itself. 
 
 It has already been remarked that this work was not 
 written from the spiritualistic standpoint. It is intended 
 to show the progressive reflections of a mind (unbiased, 
 of ordinary intelligence, anxious for the truth at any cost 
 of preconceptions or prejudices), which is brought into 
 relations with a series of unfamiliar and striking phe- 
 nomena. It aims neither to display the trained shrewd- 
 ness of the juggler, the profundity of the scientific 
 investigator, nor the acuteness of the police detective ; 
 but to reflect the careful and patient method of the 
 average layman, whose sole object is to get at the facts, 
 that he may have the means of forming an opinion for 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 himself upon matters for which he finds no explanation 
 at the usual sources of knowledge. 
 
 It was the author's intention to embody in Part II the 
 full text of certain remarkable documents, which show 
 the attitude of affairs with respect to the conflict between 
 Religion and Science, as well as the tone of the public 
 press, in this country and Europe, in its discussion of the 
 phenomena of spiritualism. But the limits of the volume 
 were reached sooner than expected, in the arrangement 
 of the original matter, and he was forced to confine him- 
 self within narrower bounds. Moreover, just as he was 
 completing the last Chapter of Part I, he received, 
 through the Hon. Robert Dale Owen, an invitation from 
 the Holmes' of Philadelphia, to investigate their medium- 
 ship and the so called " Katie King materializations," 
 under test conditions; and the importance of the subject, 
 with the astounding developments which resulted, 
 demanded that every remaining page of space should be 
 devoted to it. 
 
 It is safe to say that in whatever light the Holmes 
 affair is viewed, it must be regarded as one of the most 
 sensational stories in history. Whether we consider the 
 perfectness of the supposed materialization, the circum- 
 stances under which it occurred, the attendant phenomena, 
 the scientific completeness of the tests given, or the 
 pretended exposure of the alleged fraud, in the interest 
 of Religion and good morals, it will be hard to find a 
 parallel to the case. 
 
 Nor will it escape the notice of the intelligent that the 
 Philadelphia tests go far towards corroborating the Chit- 
 tenden experiences; for, if " materialization " can occur 
 in one place it may in many, and, hence, the supposition 
 that real ghosts were seen at the Eddy house is made to 
 appear only half as improbable. The cheerful alacrity 
 shown by the Holmes' to submit themselves to crucial 
 test conditions, makes the behavior of the Eddy boys 
 appear in a correspondingly unfavorable light. It was 
 alleged, as an excuse at Chittenden, that the author's 
 magnetism was so positive and repellant to the spirits, as 
 to prevent their bearing his near approach ; whereas, the 
 fact appears to be that they can allow him to handle 
 them, to gaze into their faces from a distance of six 
 inches, and otherwise to come to closest quarters, with- 
 out causing them the slightest inconvenience. What a 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 waste of golden opportunity the unfriendly behavior of 
 the Eddy boys has caused ! 
 
 And yet, if one may judge from a recent letter written 
 by Horatio to a mutual friend, they entertain no personal 
 dislike to the author, but were compelled to act as they 
 did by the " spirit-bahd " controlling their circle. Horatio 
 remarks that, in this matter, they were the slaves of the 
 powers behind the phenomena, who, having gotten them- 
 selves into antagonism with the author, forced him and 
 his brothers and sisters to share that feeling for the 
 moment. 
 
 The relation of mediums towards their controlling 
 spirits is perfectly denned in this letter from one of the 
 most noted mediums — they are slaves. While 'under 
 control,' their own will is set aside, and their actions, 
 their speech, and their very consciousness, are directed 
 by that of another. They are as helpless to do, or say, 
 or think, or see what they desire, as the subject of the 
 mesmerist, whose body is a mere machine governed by 
 a will external to and dominant over itself. The 
 'materializing medium' must even, it appears, lend 
 from the more ethereal portions of his frame, some of 
 the matter that goes to form the evanescent material- 
 ized shapes of the departed. The observations of Mr. 
 Crookes indicate that, in some cases at least, an enor- 
 mous exhaustion of the medium's vital forces is caused 
 by the exercise of his medianic function, and it is one 
 of the problems before us to discover the extent and 
 cause of this exhaustion, and whether any system of 
 diet, exercise, repose and mental regulation will reduce 
 it to a minimum without interfering with the 
 phenomena. 
 
 The seers of the Bible, the fakirs of India, the priests 
 of Isis, and the vestals of Rome fasted and prayed, for 
 longer or shorter periods, before entering the ecstatic 
 condition. Should our modern mediums do likewise? 
 And would fasting and prayer insure us against the 
 pranks and deceptions of poltergeists^ or the malice of 
 returning murderers, suicides, and drunkards? 
 
 Since the spiritualistic movement has acquired such 
 force and breadth that it cannot be stayed, how long 
 must we wait for the wise men to tell us how we can 
 enjoy the communion of the saints, and escape the 
 assaults of the powers of darkness ? We ask them for 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 light, and they give us no response. Our homes are 
 seemingly invaded by an invisible host of good and 
 evil spirits, and we turn in vain to scientific men for 
 instructions as to how the one class may be detained, 
 and the other expelled. They bend in laboratory and 
 study, over wriggling insects and squirming reptiles, 
 insensible of the glorified beings who stand perhaps, 
 behind them, and blind to the magnificent field of 
 research that lies before them in the direction of the 
 Inner World. They leave us to grope our own way 
 toward the Truth, and if we fall into error, we have the 
 right to hold them accountable, for they are the custodi- 
 ans of knowledge, our teachers, and guides. If they do 
 not help us, we must search for ourselves. We cannot 
 remain ignorant, for we are all urged on by : 
 
 " The wish to know ; — th' insatiate thirst 
 
 That e'en by quenching is awaked ; 
 And that becomes, or blest, or curst, 
 
 As is the fount at which 't is slaked.' 
 
 No. 7 Beekman Street, 
 New York City, January, 1875. 
 
 H. S. O. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE EDDY FAMILY. 
 
 Chittenden. — Its people. — First impressions. — Self-expose' of the 
 Eddys. — The Author's reception. — History of the family. — 
 The mother. — Hereditary witchcraft. — Children hired out as 
 mediums. — Cruelties practised upon them. — The Homestead. 17 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE EDDYS AS PUBLIC MEDIUMS. 
 Cruelty of tests applied. — Horatio's diary. — Rope-tying. — Rep- 
 resentation of every phase of mediumship. — Wonderful stories 
 of the Eddy family. — Their present condition. — Indoor view. 33 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PERSONAL MATTERS. 
 The Author's position. — Impertinent people. — Letters received. 
 — Evidence of wide-spread interest in Spiritualism 53 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A MOONLIGHT SEANCE. 
 Surroundings of the Eddy Homestead. — Its visitors. — Honto's 
 cave. — An out-door seance. — Indian ghosts. — Santum's grave. 
 — An Editor's ghost. — No footprints left 57 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PORTENTS AND MARVELS. 
 
 Trials of mediums. — Magnetism and mesmerism. — Universal 
 belief in spirits. — Ancient mediums. — Animals as mediums. — 
 Three wise men at sea. — Hostility of the church. — The Phan- 
 tom Carriage. — Death portents. — Other marvels 68 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WONDERS IN THE EDDY FAMILY. 
 Living three lives. — Shadow of the father. — The lady on the 
 white horse. — Story of Miranda Eddy. — Francis Lightfoot 
 Eddy. — A child's death averted. — Records of warnings and 
 portents. — The Spinning Ghost 89 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A CHAPTER OF FEET AND INCHES. 
 
 The Author takes an observation. — Infallible investigators. — 
 Scientific skepticism. — Character of the Eddy phenomena. — 
 Spirit-forms. — The Circle-Room. — Its inside and surroundings. 
 — Thorough examinations 105 
 
CONTENTS. xiii 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MATERIALIZATION. 
 
 Its history. — Salem witchcraft. — Immediate cause of the Eddy 
 materializations 121 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE FIRST SEANCE. 
 
 Opening of the circle-room. — The first seance. — The Author's 
 visit — Music at seances. — First ghost, an Indian squaw. — The 
 beating heart. — Indians and whites. — Children and grown 
 persons 130 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MANY THANTOM VISITORS. 
 
 Bright Star, Daybreak, Santum and other Indian ghosts. — Spirit 
 of Col. Reynolds, of Utica, N. Y., brother and nephew. — 
 Wm. Brown, over 6 feet high. — A Hartford family reunited. 
 — Baby ghosts. — Spirit dissolves. — Imperfect materialization. 140 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ARE THEY PERSONATIONS ? 
 
 A review of William and his cabinet. — His education. — Re- 
 examination of the cabinet. — Four hundred spirits. — A bogus 
 investigator. — A dealer in thunderbolts 154 
 
 •CHAPTER XII. 
 
 IS IT AN OCCULT FORCE? 
 
 Closest investigation demanded. — Spontaneous generation. — 
 Psychology and Mind-reading. — Many questions. — A light- 
 circle. — The baby-hand. — Mystery of mysteries. — Whence 
 comes the power ? 169 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 FULL OF STRANGE THINGS. 
 
 Responsibility of Scientists. — A social dance. — Little Charlie. — 
 A German spirit. — Ten spirits measuring heights — Table of 
 time. — The malicious barber. — The smoking squaw. — Two 
 voices at once. — Disappointed visitors. — Independence of the 
 Eddys 1 S4 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE DARK-CIRCLE. 
 
 Mayflower's story. — The Sailor ghost. — A Hurly-burly. — A strong 
 test. — Wonderful result. — A musical performance. — A Clair- 
 voyant's view. — A multitude of spirits 205 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL TESTS. 
 
 Ringing a table gong. — Ten spirits at a seance. — A light-circle. 
 - — Card writing. — Picture drawing. — Heights of the spirits. — 
 The scale test. — Weighing Honto. — A spirit's explanation. — 
 Discoverers ridiculed 225 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 STARTLING PHENOMENA. 
 A good test. — A spirit orator. — Strength of spirits tested. — The 
 ring test. — Spirits welding copper. — Eccentric habits as tests. 247 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 A CHAPTER OF MARVELS. 
 Responsibility of the Author. — Spirit of an Arab. — Five Indian 
 spirits. — Weighing spirits. — Diagram of platform. — Seance in 
 another room. — Ground-plan of this room. — Thorough exam- 
 ination. — Shawl manufacturing by Honto.— Spirits of woman 
 and child. — Various spirits. — Mysteries 269 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 MORE WONDERS. 
 The Witch of the Mountain. — What a lawyer saw. — A new 
 arrival. — A Russian Lady. — Russian ghosts. — Georgian 
 and Canadian spirits. — Georgian music. — A merchant's letters. 
 — Mr. Peebles' certificate. — Spirits dissolve. — More Arabs.. . . 289 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 GERMANS, KHOURDS, AND HUNGARIANS. 
 A dark-circle. — Letters from spirit-children. — A wounded hand. 
 — A Khourdish " Nouker." — Spear and plumes. — Nine talking 
 spirits. — More shawl making. — Old Mr. Brown 314 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE DEAD ALIVE. 
 Spirits. — A relative shocked. — A bogus Lord Byron. — An African 
 juggler. — Wonderful feats. — Tape-climbing. — The horned 
 jugglers of Egypt. — The maiden and lover. — Story of a bull. 
 — Wonderful Eastern magic 326 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 SPIRITUALISM VS. RATIONALISM. 
 Forming opinions. — Popular anxiety. — Charmed circles. — Black 
 magic and white. — Cowardly Editors. — Spirit animals 339 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 SPIRITS AS CARRIERS. 
 Fruits furnished by spirits. — Floral displays. — Stones carried. — 
 Buckle from a Russian grave. — Various spirits 350 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 TESTS CONTINUED. 
 Honto's hair examined. — Bell and glass. — No favors shown the 
 Author. — What a Hartford man saw. — Honto plays the organ, 363 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 PSEUDO-INVESTIGATORS. 
 Mayflower. — How are these things done ? — Spirit-wreaths. — A 
 Dark-circle explained. — Wiseacres. — Ignorance and prejudice 
 of writers. — Effects of investigations. — The Holmes phe- 
 nomena. — John Brougham's views — The returned darling. — 
 Value of tests. — The Eddys' standpoint 374 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE SHAKERS AS SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 What Mr. Evans says. — Manifestations among the Shakers and 
 Mormons. — Degrees of Spiritualism. — Oneida Community's 
 report. — Mediums everywhere 392 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 SUMMING UP. 
 The great conflict. — Science and Religion. — Narrative of facts. 
 — Results. — Uses of Spiritualism. — " Murder will out." — Fare- 
 well to Chittenden 406 
 
 PART II. 
 
 THE KATIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 THE COMPTON TRANSFIGURATION. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Page. 
 
 1 The Old Homestead {Frontispiece) 
 
 2 The Eddy Brothers 19 
 
 3 The Mother 25 
 
 4 The Eddy Home (side and rear view) 31 
 
 5 Tests by Committees 33 
 
 6 Sufferings of Mediums 41 
 
 7 The Dining Room 48 
 
 8 Above and Below 51 
 
 9 Graves of Mus. Eddy and Santum 59 
 
 10 Konto's Cave 63 
 
 1 1 Indisputable Materialization 74 
 
 12 The Phantom Carriage 81 
 
 13 Hidden Treasures 85 
 
 -14 Buried Knife 101 
 
 15 The Spinning Ghost '. 103 
 
 16 The Ci ecle Room 110 
 
 17 Inside of Cabinet 113 
 
 18 View and Plan of Cabinet 117 
 
 19 Honto Making Shawls and Blankets 138 
 
 20 The Reunited Family 145 
 
 21 Spirit-Form Dissolving 149 
 
 22 Wm. Eddy (full length portrait; 156 
 
 23 Tim Sleeping Medium 162 
 
 24 Matkrialized Spiiiits 165 
 
 25 The Light-Circle 178 
 
 26 Contrast in Hands 181 
 
 27 Well-known Forms 189 
 
 28 The Smoking Squaw 195 
 
 29 An Evening's Visitors Grouped 200 
 
 30 Dix and Mayflower 207 
 
 31 The Dark-Circle 212 
 
 32 A Noted Medium 215 
 
 33 A Clair voyant's View 221 
 
 34 Freaks of a Young Squaw 227 
 
 35 Spirit Card-Writing 232 
 
 36 Fac-Simile of Spirit-Writing 235 
 
 37 Fac-Simile of Spirit- Writing 236 
 
 38 Measure and Weight 240 
 
 39 Mrs. Eddy Addressing the Audience 251 
 
 40 The Balance Test 255 
 
 41 The Ring Test 261 
 
 42 Comparing Heights 265 
 
 43 Picture for the Artist 280 
 
 44 Spirit-Forms 285 
 
 45 Witch and Caucasian 296 
 
 46 A Side Show 300 
 
 47 A Merchant and Nurse 311 
 
 48 Card, Fao-Simile 317 
 
 49 Card, Facsimile 318 
 
 50 A Strange Visitor 822 
 
 51 A Spirit from Africa 329 
 
 52 Tiie Buckle and Medal 357 
 
 53 Arab. Russian, and Indian 361 
 
 54 A Musical Spirit 372 
 
 55 Spirit Wreaths . 377 
 
 56 Table and Glass 381 
 
 57 The Lost Darling 388 
 
 58 The Murdered Woman Materialized 421 
 
PART I. 
 
 THE EDDY MANIFESTATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE EDDY FAMILY. 
 
 SEVEN miles north from Rutland, in a grassy valley 
 shut in by the slopes of the Green Mountains, lying 
 high above the tide-water, is the little hamlet of Chit- 
 tenden. There is nothing about it worthy of notice, and 
 its sole claim to notoriety lies in the fact that it is the 
 nearest post-town to the homestead farm of the Eddy fam- 
 ily of spiritual mediums, whose fame has spread over the 
 whole country. The people of the vicinage are, apparently 
 with few exceptions, plain, dull, and uninteresting, seem- 
 ing to know nothing and to care less about the marvellous 
 things that are happening under their very eyes, or even 
 the history of their section. Inhabiting a rugged country 
 which exacts much hard labor for small pecuniary returns, 
 they go the round of their daily duty, and trouble them- 
 selves about nothing except to get the usual modicum of 
 food and sleep. Their rare occasions of enjoyment are 
 the days of the county fair, the elections, " raisings," 
 huskings, and like country assemblages. Their religion 
 is intolerant, their sect Methodist ; within the pale of 
 which body all persons are good, without which all are 
 
 17 
 
1 8 HORATIO AND WILLIAM. 
 
 bad. The liberalizing influences that in more thickly 
 settled localities have, for the past ten or twenty years, 
 been leavening the whole religious world, seem to be 
 unfelt in this secluded region. Towards the heterodox 
 these people have no yearning bowels of compassion. 
 Their weapons are both spiritual and carnal ; and I judge 
 from the sad story of the Eddy children that these zealots, 
 if suddenly driven out of their beloved church, would feel 
 more at home under the wing of Mahomet than elsewhere, 
 for when prayer has failed of conversion they have resorted 
 to fire and the lash to bring the lamb within the fold. I 
 recently visited this place in the interest of the New York 
 Sun, and spoke of the relations between the Eddys and 
 their neighbors in the following terms : 
 
 " There is nothing about the Eddys or their surroundings to 
 inspire confidence on first acquaintance. The brothers Horatio and 
 William, who are the present mediums, are sensitive, distant, and 
 curt to strangers, look more like hard-working rough farmers than 
 prophets or priests of a new dispensation, have dark complexions, 
 black hair and eyes, stiff joints, a clumsy carriage, shrink from 
 advances, and make newcomers feel ill at ease and unwelcome. 
 * * * They are at feud with some of their neighbors, and as 
 a rule not liked either in Rutland or Chittenden. * * * 
 They are in fact under the ban of a public opinion that is not pre- 
 pared or desirous to study the phenomena as either scientific mar- 
 vels or revelations from another world." * * * 
 
 When I first began to write about these mediums, I 
 became convinced that they had never done anything to 
 deserve the reprobation of their neighbors, for a number 
 of reports reflecting upon their character, upon being 
 sifted, were discovered to be untrue. I could see preju- 
 dice so ill concealed by the narrators, and ignorance of 
 the domestic life, to say nothing of the mediumistic 
 
F ~ 
 
20 DISHONEST MEDIUMS. 
 
 faculty of the members of the family, so plainly revealed, 
 that perhaps I went to unnecessary lengths in my defence 
 of their reputations. But since I began the work of 
 revising my matter for this volume, I have met a former 
 citizen of Chittenden, and a man of good character, now 
 a resident of a distant city, who is knowing to the fact 
 that some seven or eight years ago two of the Eddys gave 
 an exhibition, or exhibitions, of certain of the commoner 
 tricks of mediums, themselves included ; and I was 
 furnished with the names of witnesses who can corrobo- 
 rate the statement. It is not surprising, therefore, that a 
 simple-minded people, prejudiced against everything that 
 smacks of diabolism, and looking upon the Eddy ghost- 
 room as a Chamber of Horrors, should hastily adopt the 
 opinion that if they were false in the lesser " phenomena" 
 they must be in all ; and conclude that a family who 
 could publicly confess their dishonesty, for pay, had good 
 reason to adopt a forbidding aspect to strangers, especially 
 those who would be likely to discover the trickery which 
 furnishes them a support. I am not, I am happy to say, 
 of that class of pseudo-investigators which rejects the 
 chance of finding truth in these marvels because mediums 
 occasionally cheat. It has often, and justly, been said 
 that the circulation of counterfeit coin is no proof that 
 the genuine does not exist, but the reverse ; and the re- 
 ports of most intelligent writers agree in the statement 
 that nearly all public mediums occasionally simulate their 
 phenomena when, from any cause, they cannot produce 
 the real ones. Judge Edmonds and Mr. Robert Dale 
 Owen both told me some years since that they had 
 detected one of the best physical mediums in the United 
 
MEDI UMS NO T FREE A GEN TS. 2 1 
 
 States, in trickery, thus corroborating my own experience 
 with the same person ; and a well-known artist in Hartford 
 says that he discovered Home, one of the greatest me- 
 diums ever known, in acts of deception, both before his 
 departure for Europe, and during a subsequent visit to 
 this country. As to this matter of the Eddy self-expo- 
 sures, the parties interested tell me that their exposure 
 was a mere pretense, resorted to for the purpose of raising 
 money when they were in a very needy condition. In a 
 word, they cheated the public with a sham exposure when 
 it would not come to see them in their character of me- 
 diums. There can be but one opinion of such behavior 
 as this ; and, therefore, while my narrative will contain 
 all that can be said on behalf of the remarkable medium- 
 ship, or apparent mediumship, of these boys, the reader 
 will find that I shall not rely upon any of their manifes- 
 tations that could be imitated by them, in working up my 
 conclusions as to the reality of the phenomena. Such a 
 course would be a waste of time and thought. 
 
 I separate the medium from the man, considering him 
 beyond a certain point an irresponsible being ; that is, if 
 there is any such thing as mediumship. In neglecting 
 this I think most investigators have hitherto erred. If it 
 be true that persons of certain temperaments i-n this 
 world may be controlled by persons in the other, then the 
 mediums, being ccnitrolled, are not free agents, but ma- 
 chines. A person of this kind may, therefore, be a very 
 bad man but a very good machine. Furthermore, if the 
 medium's actions while serving as such are beyond his 
 control, he may, unless he be entranced, observe them 
 just as any spectator, and, observing, may learn to 
 
22 MY RE CEP TION B Y THE EDD VS. 
 
 imitate, with more or less perfection according to his 
 natural intelligence and endowments. 
 
 Thus I observed the Eddys at first in their double 
 capacity, and determined at the outset not to allow any- 
 thing they might say or do, or any of their surroundings, 
 uncongenial with my own tastes or habits, to bias my 
 verdict upon their claims as spiritual mediums. 
 
 When I say that my first reception by the family was 
 most inhospitable ; that during my visit of five days I 
 never felt sure that at any moment I might not be 
 requested to leave; that I was made to feel like an 
 intruder whose room was preferable to his company; 
 that I was struggling against all the prejudice one 
 naturally would feel against persons who claimed to 
 be able to summon an army of spirits from the other 
 world; that I sat silent when members of the family 
 made ungracious and threatening speeches against per- 
 sons who might misrepresent them, clearly meaning 
 me; that for fear my mission might be cut short and 
 my ability to do my duty to my employers destroyed, 
 I breathed not a word of my purpose to write for the 
 newspaper, and left the place without having had a 
 single opportunity to draw out their side of the story 
 from the Eddys, the public has reason to admit that in 
 saying what I did in their favor I was at least actuated 
 by no feelings of partiality. 
 
 I was glad, when my second visit was so unexpect- 
 edly brought about, that things were just as they had 
 been at the beginning, for I had heard all the evil 
 stories in circulation and sifted them thoroughly, and 
 was in a condition of mind to do justice to people who 
 
THEIR ANCESTORS. 23 
 
 had not always acted so as to make friends, had few 
 real ones, and fewer opportunities granted to lay their 
 pathetic tale before the world. It was not because I 
 had sympathy with their beliefs, nor that their welfare 
 was a matter of greater personal concern than that of 
 any other decent people, but because, in common with 
 every one else, my good wishes went with the weak 
 and oppressed, and this family had been worried and 
 torn by the spirit of intolerance, as a sheep by wolves. 
 Manhood revolts at the persecutions, cruelties, and 
 indignities they have been called to suffer in conse- 
 quence of the direful inheritance of mediumship that 
 was bequeathed them in their blood — an inheritance 
 that made their childhood wretched, and, until recently, 
 life itself a heavy burden. To explain my meaning I 
 will give some particulars of the family history as they 
 have been communicated to me by the surviving 
 children. 
 
 Zephaniah Eddy, a farmer living at Weston, Vt, mar- 
 ried one Julia Ann Macombs, a girl of Scotch descent 
 who was born in the same town. She was first cousin 
 to General Leslie Combs, of Kentucky, who changed 
 his name to its present form, and was distantly related 
 to a noble Scotch family. About the year 1846 Mr. 
 Eddy sold his farm and removed to the present home- 
 stead in the town of Chittenden. -/Mrs. Eddy inherited 
 from her mother the gift of "foreseeing," as it is called 
 among the Scotch, or more properly "clairvoyance," 
 for she not only had previsions of future events, but 
 also the faculty of seeing the denizens of the mysterious 
 world about us, from whom she claimed to receive visits 
 
24 THE MOTHER. 
 
 as commonly as though they were ordinary neighbors. 
 
 Not only this, but she could also hold speech with 
 them, hear them address their conversation to the 
 inner self within her, utter warnings of impending 
 calamities, and sometimes bring tidings of joy. Her 
 mother before her possessed the same faculties in de- 
 gree, and her great-great-great-grandmother was 
 actually tried and sentenced to death at Salem for 
 alleged "witchcraft" in the dark days of 1692, but 
 escaped to Scotland by the aid of friends who rescued 
 her from jail. Zephaniah Eddy was a narrow-minded 
 man, strong in his prejudices, a bigoted religionist, and 
 very little educated. 
 
 His new wife instinctively withheld from him all 
 knowledge of her peculiar psychological gifts, and for 
 a time after their marriage she seemed to have lost 
 them. But they returned after the birth of her first 
 child stronger than ever, and from that time until the 
 day of her death they were the source of much misery. 
 
 Mr. Eddy at first made light of them, laughed at 
 her prognostications, and forbade her giving way 
 to what he declared was the work of the Evil One 
 himself. He resorted to prayer to abate the nuis- 
 ance, or, as he styled it, to " cast the devil out of his 
 ungodly wife and children," and, that failing, to coer- 
 cive measures, that proved equally inefficacious. 
 
 The first child that was born had the father's tempera- 
 ment, but each succeeding one the mother's, and each, at 
 a very tender age, developed her idiosyncrasies. Mys- 
 terious sounds were heard about their cradles, strange 
 voices called through the rooms they were in, they 
 
THE MOTHER. 
 
SALEM WITCHES OUTDONE. 25 
 
 would play by the hour with beautiful children, visible 
 only to their eyes and the mother's, who brought them 
 flowers and pet animals, and romped with them ; and 
 once in a while, after they were tucked away in bed, 
 their little bodies would be lifted gently and floated 
 through the air by some mysterious power. In vain 
 the father stormed and threatened : the thing went on. 
 He called his pious neighbors together — Harvey Pratt, 
 Rufus Sprague, Sam Parker, Sam Simmons, Charles 
 Powers, and Anson Ladd — and prayed and prayed that 
 this curse might be removed from his house. But the 
 devil was proof against entreaty and expostulation, and 
 the harder they prayed the wickeder the pranks he 
 played. Then the infuriated parent resorted to blows, 
 and, to get the evil spirit out of them, he beat these 
 little girls and boys until he made scars on their backs 
 that they will carry to their graves. It seemed as if the 
 man would go crazy with rage. 
 
 By and by, things got so bad that the spirits would 
 " materialize " themselves in the room, right in the father's 
 view, and, not being able to handle them after his usual 
 fashion, his only refuge was to leave the chamber. The 
 children could not go to school, for before long, raps 
 would be heard on the desks and benches, and they 
 would be driven out by the teacher, followed by the 
 hootings and revilings of the scholars. This, it will be 
 remembered, was just what happened to the children of 
 the unfortunates who were hung for witchcraft at Salem, 
 the sins (?) of the parents being cruelly visited upon the 
 children. 
 
 One night, when Horatio was four years old, a little 
 2 
 
26 EXORCISING THE DEVIL BY FIRE. 
 
 creature covered with a white fur suddenly appeared 
 in the room where he and three of the other children were 
 sleeping, jumped upon their bed, sniffed at their faces, 
 and then began growing larger and larger until it turned 
 into a great luminous cloud, that gradually shaped itself 
 into a human form. The children screamed, and the 
 mother running in hastily with a candle, the shape disap- 
 peared. So year after year things went on, full of trouble 
 and sorrow for all in the unhappy house. No wonder 
 that I found them "curt," "repellant," and "sensitive,"' 
 and suspicious and calculated to arouse suspicion. I 
 think I would be likewise under like circumstances. 
 
 Poor Mrs. Eddy's misfortunes did not cease with her 
 husband's death in i860, but followed her even into her 
 grave, as she one day in a prophetic vision told the 
 children it would in the exact manner in which it hap- 
 pened. When her death occurred (January 1st, 1873) it 
 was intended that she should be buried by the Spiritualists, 
 certain of whom had promised to be present, but it so 
 happened that they were detained away, and two Metho- 
 dist friends of the husband's acted as sole pall-bearers. 
 As they were about to lower the coffin into the grave 
 these two worthies fell into dispute about a. lawsuit that 
 they had just had, and one, in his eagerness to get at his 
 antagonist, dropped his rope and the poor lady was dumped 
 e?id over end into the pit, and the coffin turned bottom side 
 up. 
 
 One surprising instance of the cruelty begotten by 
 ignorance, is afforded in the means resorted to once to 
 bring William Eddy out of a trance. Pushing, pinching, 
 and blows proving in vain, Anson Ladd, with the father's 
 
THE CHILDREN RENTED AS MEDIUMS. 27 
 
 permission, poured scalding hot water down his back, and, 
 as a last heroic operation, put a blazing ember from the 
 hearth on his head. But the lad slept on, and the only 
 effect of this cruelty was the great scar that he has shown 
 me on his crest. 
 
 The father's scruples did not interfere with his willing- 
 ness to turn a thrifty penny by an exhibition of the dia- 
 bolical gifts of his progeny, for, after the Rochester 
 knockings of 1847 had ushered in the new dispensation 
 of Spiritualism, he hired three or four of the children out 
 to one showman, who took them to nearly all the princi- 
 pal cities of the United States, and to another who took 
 them to London for a brief season. 
 
 The children got all the kicks and he all the ha'pence 
 in this transaction, and a sorry time it was for them. 
 Passed through the merciless hands of scores of "com- 
 mittees of skeptics," bound with cords by " sailors of 
 seven years' experience," and riggers "accustomed to tie 
 knots where human life was at risk," of carpenters with a 
 fancy for other knots than those in their boards, of inven- 
 tors who knew all sorts of "ropes" in addition to their 
 particular steam-engines or threshing-machines, and such- 
 like illuminati, their soft young metacarpal bones were 
 squeezed out of shape, and their arms covered with the 
 scars of melted wax, used to make the assurance of the 
 bonds doubly and trebly sure. These wrists and arms 
 are a sight to see. Every girl and boy of them has a 
 marked groove between the ends of the ulna and radius 
 and the articulation of the bones of the hand, and every 
 one of them is scarred by hot sealing-wax. Two of the 
 girls showed me scars where pieces of flesh had been 
 
28 MOBBED AND SHOT AT. 
 
 pinched out by handcuffs used by " committees " — fools 
 who seem to have been unable to discover suspected 
 fraud without resort to brutal violence on the persons of 
 children. 
 
 And then the mobbings they have passed through ! At 
 Lynn, Mass. ; South Danvers; West Cleveland, O., where 
 William was ridden on a rail and barely escaped a coat 
 of tar and feathers ; at Moravia, N. Y. ; at Waltham, 
 Mass., where they had to fly for their lives ; at Dunville, 
 Canada — in all which places their " cabinet " (a simple, 
 portable closet, in which they sit for the manifestations) 
 was smashed. They make no account in this catalogue 
 of suffering, of the places where they were stoned, hooted 
 at, and followed to their hotels by angry crowds. At 
 South Danvers they were fired upon by hidden assassins, 
 and William has the scar of a bullet in his ankle and 
 Mary one in her arm to show for their picnic in that 
 tolerant locality ! Horatio carries his memento of that 
 place in a stab wound in his leg, and Lynn supplied him 
 with ' the two tokens of a scar on his forehead, where a 
 brick hit him, and a broken finger, the third, on his right 
 hand. 
 
 Ah ! these committees are often honorable gentle- 
 men, as may be inferred from the fact that once when 
 applying the " flour-test " — the placing of flour in the 
 medium's hands after his wrists are tied, to detect him if 
 he disengages his hands and plays upon the instruments 
 himself — aquafortis was mixed in the flour, and shock- 
 ingly burned Horatio's fingers; and once, when the 
 musical instruments, horns, &c, were rubbed with rouge, 
 so that the mediums might be betrayed by their discolored 
 
A FAIR INVESTIGA TION PREFERRED. 29 
 
 hands if they should touch them, one of the committee, 
 pretending to make a last examination of the knots, 
 rubbed the hands of both the boys with rouge. In this 
 instance, however, the base trick availed nothing, for, 
 aware of what had been done, the Eddys called for the 
 audience to look at their hands before the cabinet doors 
 were closed, and the culprit was exposed. 
 
 The reader will understand, from what I have said of 
 their childhood experiences, that these poor creatures had 
 little or no educational advantages, and their numerous 
 correspondents will not be surprised at the illiteracy- 
 shown in their letters. They will be surprised, on the other 
 hand, when I say that I have heard words in six foreign 
 tongues spoken, and conversation sustained in the same, 
 by rappings by some of the phantoms whose appearance 
 before me, during my present visit to the Eddy home- 
 stead, I shall describe in future chapters of this true 
 story. 
 
 The Daily Graphic was pleased to say of a letter of 
 mine from this place, that " the story is as marvellous as 
 any to be found in history," an opinion that was reiterated 
 by several of the most respected journals in other cities. I 
 risk nothing in now saying that what I am about to narrate 
 is far more extraordinary in every respect, and I expect to 
 tax the public indulgence as to my veracity to the utmost. 
 But I shall at least take good care to be within the 
 limits of the truth, so that my story may be verified 
 by any future investigator who is willing to scan closely, 
 move cautiously to conclusions, and " nothing extenuate 
 nor aught set down in malice." I went to Chittenden 
 to discover the truth as to the " Eddy manifestations," 
 
30 THE EDD Y HOMESTEAD. 
 
 and as I find things, so shall I describe them, caring 
 
 nothing how much my own prejudices are affected by the 
 
 result. 
 
 The sketches that illustrate this chapter represent 
 
 the Eddy homestead as viewed from the south-east,* 
 
 rear, and north side. The house is the first frame 
 
 building erected in Chittenden township, and for many 
 
 years was a wayside inn. It comprises a main building 
 
 and a rear extension, or L, of two stories, of which the 
 
 lower is divided into a dining-room, kitchen, and small 
 
 cupboard or pantry; and the upper, thrown into one 
 
 room, is known as the " circle-room," or among the 
 
 profane, as " the ghost shop." In the rear view, the 
 
 kitchen door is seen at the hither end of the L part, 
 
 and the square window in the gable-end gives light 
 
 into the " cabinet " or narrow closet in which William 
 
 i 
 
 Eddy sits when the materializations occur. 
 
 * See Frontispiece. 
 

 /JEAR V'/EW. 
 
 THE HOMESTEAD, (REAR AND SIDE VIEW.) 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 TREATMENT OF PUBLIC MEDIUMS. 
 
 THE story of the persecutions, mobbings, hardships 
 and trials through which the Eddy children were 
 obliged to pass, carries a moral with it, which 
 the intelligent reader can hardly have overlooked. It 
 must have been apparent that we are not dealing with 
 the case of charlatans who have recently taken to the 
 business of trickery for the sake of gain, for these girls 
 and boys seem to have inherited their peculiar temper- 
 aments from their ancestry, and the phenomena com- 
 mon to most genuine " mediums" of the present day, 
 attended them in their very cradles. It will scarcely 
 be said that children who, like Elisha, were caught up 
 and conveyed from one place to another, and in whose 
 presence weird forms were materialized as they lay in 
 their trundle-bed, were playing pranks to tax the cre- 
 dulity of an observant public, which was ignorant of 
 their very existence. It will not be seriously urged, I 
 fancy, against youth, whose bodies were scored with 
 the lash, cicatrized by burning wax, by pinching man- 
 acles, by the knife, the bullet and by boiling water, 
 
 33 
 
34 NO IND UCEAIENT FOR FRA UD. 
 
 who were starved, driven to the woods to save their 
 lives from parental violence ; who were forced to travel 
 year after year and exhibit their occult powers for 
 others' gain ; who were mobbed and stoned, shot at and 
 reviled ; who could not get even an ordinary country- 
 school education like other children, nor enjoy the com- 
 panionship of boys and girls of their own age; — it 
 will not be urged against such as these that they were 
 in conspiracy to deceive, when they had everything to 
 gain and nothing to lose by abandoning the fraud and 
 being like other folk. The idea is preposterous ; and 
 we must infer that, whatever may be the source of the 
 phenomena, they are at least objective and not subjec- 
 tive — the result of some external force, independent 
 of the medium's wishes, and manifesting itself when 
 the penalty of its manifestation was to subject the un- 
 fortunates to bodily torture and mental anguish. 
 
 We must turn back to Fox's "Book of Martyrs" if 
 we would catch the diabolical spirit that has been ex- 
 hibited towards these men during the fifteen years that 
 they travelled the country to exhibit their wonderful 
 gifts; for, while our times are not those of the Eighth 
 Harry's cruel daughter, the feeling of intolerance in 
 the Church towards these latter-day heretics, is substan- 
 tially the same as that which sent Ridley and Latimer, 
 Bradford and Cranmer to the stake, and caused Calvin 
 to procure the death of his learned fellow-Protestant, 
 Servetus. This is the first time within my knowledge, 
 that this side of the medium question has been dis- 
 cussed, and in the hope that the example may be imi- 
 tated, I will show some of the barbarities inflicted upon 
 these Eddy boys by "committees." 
 
PUBLIC EXHIBITIONS. 35 
 
 To understand the matter, persons who have never 
 attended a public spiritist exhibition should be told 
 what the performance is like. In a public hall, upon 
 the platform, is set tip a wardrobe, or " cabinet," made 
 of half-inch walnut, seven feet high, six feet wide, two 
 feet deep, and resting on trestles eighteen inches high, 
 to permit a full view under the cabinet and satisfy the 
 spectator that there is no communication through traps 
 with its interior. The front is composed of three doors, 
 the side ones swinging to right and left respectively, 
 and the centre one to right. At each end inside is a 
 narrow board seat, supported on cleats, and one of like 
 width runs the width of the cabinet against the back 
 wall. In the upper half of the centre door is a dia- 
 mond-shaped opening, behind which hangs a black 
 velvet curtain. The mediums enter, and, seating them- 
 selves on the end seats, are firmly bound hand and foot 
 by a committee selected by the audience, the cords 
 being passed through auger-holes in the bench. Various 
 musical instruments are placed within, beyond reach 
 of the bound mediums, and, the doors being closed, a 
 variety of curious phenomena occur. The instruments 
 are vigorously played upon, loud percussive noises are 
 heard, hands are thrust out of the opening, and other 
 exhibitions occur that a strange force is at work. The 
 cabinet doors, self-unbolted, suddenly open, and the two 
 mediums are' discovered sitting as before, with not a 
 single knot disturbed. 
 
 The committees selected by vote of the audience, 
 usually embrace men who are supposed to be unusually 
 acute, such as detectives; skilful knot-tiers, such as 
 
36 CRUELTIES OF COMMITTEES. 
 
 sailors and riggers ; and those whose education and in- 
 telligence are likely to make them competent to fathom 
 the philosophical mystery. In looking over the scrap- 
 books of the Eddys, I find the newspapers, as a rule, 
 reporting such choice of committeemen, and I also 
 find there the evidences of the unnecessary cruelties 
 practised in the interest of " science," " religion," " fair- 
 play," and particularly of what these gentry are pleased 
 to call " the truth." 
 
 The reader will please observe that I have not relied 
 upon the diaries or verbal statements of the Eddys 
 themselves in making these strictures, but solely upon 
 the testimony of the editorial descriptions of the whole 
 press, for the journals of nearly every section are 
 represented in this modern Book of Martyrs. Such 
 details of the handcuffings and ligatures, the blister- 
 ings and acid corrosions, the torture of constrained 
 positions, of mouth-gags and halter-nooses, as the 
 newspapers did not supply, I have filled in after getting 
 the necessary explanations from the mediums, and the 
 drawings were made from life. 
 
 I cannot refrain from making a single quotation from 
 Horatio's diary, under date of November, 1867, for it 
 shows the patient, uncomplaining spirit that possessed 
 the poor farmer-boy under his sufferings. It seems the 
 most appropriate introduction I could make to these 
 sketches. He says : " This day we suffered very much 
 by severe tying and abuse from those who professed to be 
 Spiritualists. But we like martyrs, bore our pain with 
 fortitude. We thanked the Divine Power for preserving 
 us from the gross treatment of our enemies. No mortal 
 
TESTS BY COMMITTEES. 
 
TESTING THE MEDIUMS. 39 
 
 knows what brutish tying we submitted ourselves to. It 
 would have made mother's heart bleed if she had known 
 what her children were passing through in Canastota." 
 
 How they were treated by the Canastota committee 
 sketch No. 4 will show. 
 
 Horatio was kept with one hand tied to his neck and 
 the other to his manacled feet for three-quarters of an 
 hour, the cord around his neck being so tight as to half 
 choke him. 
 
 The Little Falls, N. Y., investigators tried the pretty 
 device shown in sketch No. 1. 
 
 The medium is tied to a wooden T cross, by whip-cord 
 passing through holes bored for the purpose. He was 
 kept so for the space of an hour, until, owing to the tight- 
 ness of the ligatures at the wrists, the blood trickled from 
 under his finger-nails. 
 
 Sketch No. 3 will recall a scene of rope-tying, to the 
 minds of the good people of Albany, N. Y., who attended 
 a seance at the house of John McClure ; a certain Doctor 
 Perkins being the operator.- Here the medium is tied 
 down by his fingers to the floor, the tapes being secured 
 to the latter by tacks, and another tape leading to the 
 door-knob. The worthy Doctor kept this patient in this 
 position some two hours, and it is not surprising that his 
 wrists were so swollen in consequence that he was kept in 
 pain several days thereafter. 
 
 Sketch No. 2 shows a common device of the wily com- 
 mitteemen of Moriah, N. Y., and numerous other places, 
 and the drawing requires no word of comment. 
 
 Moriah, N. Y. (perhaps I do not get the name just 
 right, but the Eddys cannot help me), is also responsible 
 
40 CRUEL DEVICES. 
 
 for the cheerful " bucking " antidote, against charlatanry, 
 seen in sketch No. 6, in which attitude the victim was 
 obliged to stay two mortal hours, the spirits refusing to 
 manifest themselves under such disturbed conditions, and 
 the committee, with astonishing cruelty, declaring they 
 would keep him there until they did. This happened at 
 the house of Esak Colvin. 
 
 In sketch No. 5 we have an illustration of ingenious 
 barbarity worthy of the palmy days of the Inquisition : 
 
 Two pairs of handcuffs each, on the wrists and ankles, 
 a rope running through the links of each and passing out 
 of the cabinet at top and bottom, and a halter-noose 
 around the neck, drawn just tight enough to choke without 
 quite strangling, made an applauding public feel secure 
 against "humbug." Bristol, Conn,, richly deserves the 
 credit for this apparatus, and the additional statement 
 that it was applied for the space of nearly two and a half 
 hours. 
 
 Here, finally, in sketch No. 7, we have an effectual 
 device to prevent the exercise of ventriloquial powers in 
 imitation of spirit-voices, which has been tried in so 
 many places (not to mention Sing Sing and other peniten- 
 tiary establishments) that I forbear to recount them, lest 
 I might weary. 
 
 And now let us drop this disagreeable part of our 
 subject. 
 
 It matters little to me how the skeptical may undertake 
 to account for these Chittenden mysteries — that concerns 
 themselves alone. They may attribute them to elec- 
 tricity, but if so, they will have to encounter scientists 
 like Varley, the electrician of the Atlantic cable, who, 
 
SUFFKRINGS OF MEDIUMS. 
 
THE EDDYS AS MEDIUMS. 43 
 
 after testing them by every electrical apparatus, with 
 twenty-six years' experience to guide him, declares that 
 that subtle agent has nothing whatever to do with their 
 production ; of the late Professor Hare, who made the 
 same statement after two years of careful inquiry; of 
 Elliotson, Puysegur, Crookes, Bell, Collier, Gully, the 
 French Academicians, and the London Dialectical 
 Society. If they say it is " animal magnetism "they must 
 face an army of specialists who have exhausted every 
 endeavor to explain away the phenomena as coming 
 under this category. The knee-pan, toe-joint and knuckle 
 worthies, as a class, die a natural death as soon as we get 
 beyond the mere Rochester rappings of 1847, and I feel 
 confident that if Professors Huxley and Tyndall would 
 spend a fortnight at Chittenden, they would see their 
 protoplasms and such like scientific soothing-syrups flying 
 out of the window upon the entry of the first material- 
 ized ghost from William Eddy's closet. 
 
 It is scarcely exaggeration to say that this family of 
 mediums, if we may believe their story, is the most re- 
 markable as to psychological endowments of which men- 
 tion is made in the history of European races. Perhaps 
 among the Chinese, and certain tribes of India (the 
 Yogiswaras, for instance) and of Egypt, parallel cases may 
 be found, but such have not met my eye in the course of 
 a somewhat extensive reading in this branch of literature. 
 
 The Eddys represent about every phase of medium- 
 ship and seership : — rappings; the disturbance of 
 material objects from a state of rest ; painting in oil and 
 water-colors under influence; prophecy, the speaking of 
 strange tongues ; the healing gift ; the discernment of 
 
44 EXPERIENCES OF MEDIUMS. 
 
 spirits ; levitation, or the floating of the body in free air ; 
 the phenomena of instrument playing and the show of 
 hands ; the writing of messages on paper upborne in mid- 
 air, by pencils held by detached hands ; psychometry, or 
 the reading of character and view of distant persons 
 upon touching sealed letters ; clairvoyance ; clair- 
 audience, or the hearing of spirit-voices; and, lastly, and 
 most miraculous of all, the production of materialized 
 phantom forms, that become visible, tangible, and often 
 audible by all persons present. 
 
 Much account has been made of the story told by Lord 
 Dunraven and Lord Adair (and, I may mention, confirmed 
 to me personally by the latter gentleman), of Mr. Home's 
 having been " floated " out of one third-story window at 
 Ashley House and into another ; but what will be thought 
 of Horatio Eddy having been carried, one summer night, 
 when he was but six years old, a distance of three miles 
 to a mountain top, and left to find his way home next 
 day as best he could ; of his youngest brother Webster, 
 when a grown man, being carried out of a window and 
 over the top of a house from the presence of three wit- 
 nesses (from' two of whom I have the story), and landed 
 in a ditch a quarter of a mile off; of William being 
 carried to a distant wood and kept there unconscious for 
 three days, and then carried back -again ; of Horatio 
 being " levitated " twenty-six evenings in succession, in 
 Buffalo, in the Lyceum Hall, when fast bound in a chair, 
 and hung by the back of the chair to a chandelier hook 
 in the ceiling, and then safely lowered again to his former 
 place on the floor ? Of Mary Eddy being raised to the 
 ceiling of Hope Chapel, in New York city, where she 
 
THE AUTHOR'S Or IN IONS. 45 
 
 wrote her name ? Of her little boy, Warren, five years 
 old, who is floated in dark-circles, screaming to be let 
 down all the while ? Of a little son of Stephen Baird, 
 of Chittenden, a neighbor of theirs, who has been 
 handled in the same way ? 
 
 Mr. Home is not the only one besides the Eddys who 
 has been thus transported through mid-air, for, since 
 1347, authenticated reports will be found in the books 
 of a like thing happening to Edward Irving, Margaret 
 Rule, St. Philip of Neri, St. Catharine of Columbina, 
 Loyola, Savonarola, Jennie Lord, Madame Hauffe, and 
 many others whose names I do not at present recall, 
 and in the absence of a library cannot transcribe. 
 
 Does any one care to ask me what I think ? I answer, 
 Nothing; I watch and w r ait and report, holding myself 
 open to conviction in the spirit which the great Arago 
 describes in an old article on Mesmerism : " The man 
 who, outside of pure mathematics, pronounces the word 
 ' impossible,' is wanting in prudence." 
 
 I make no apology for having now devoted two pre- 
 liminary chapters to personal details respecting the 
 Eddy family history ; for the intelligent reader, before 
 he could give credence to the miraculous events that I 
 shall describe as occurring in their presence, would of 
 necessity ask what sort of people they are — whether 
 they were of suspicious antecedents, whether they had 
 amassed a fortune by their exhibitions, whether they are 
 making money by them now, or what motive impels 
 them to continue in their present public relation? I 
 stated above that they travelled for the profit of others; 
 by which I meant to say that when William, Horatio, 
 
46 PRESENT CONDITION OF THE EDDYS. 
 
 and Mary were young children, their father, having 
 failed to cowhide their demons out of them, hired them 
 out to a showman for four years, they receiving nothing 
 but their bare expenses ; and that at the expiration of 
 that time they were hired by various other speculators, 
 and during the ensuing eleven years received an aver- 
 age of under ten dollars a month apiece. I mean, fur- 
 thermore, to say that their house and farm would not 
 sell for $3,500, all told ; that they do all their house- 
 work themselves; that half their visitors are poor and 
 sponge on them for board, and, the other half paying 
 eight dollars per week, the family have saved enough 
 to put some necessary repairs on the house ; and finally 
 that they unite in saying that the greatest good fortune 
 that could befall them would be to have their medium- 
 ship cease, so that they might work like other farmers 
 and enjoy life like them. They are the galley-slaves 
 of the invisible powers back of the " manifestations," 
 who not only obsess them at their caprice by day while 
 about household duties, and in the evening during the 
 regular circles, but pursue them in the silent watches 
 of the night, playing the pranks of the old-time polter- 
 geists, and making it uncertain whether or no they will 
 wake in bed or in the crotch of some tree on the sum- 
 mit of an adjacent mountain. 
 
 The sketches which accompany this chapter represent 
 with fidelity the appearance of the dining-room, kitchen, 
 and pantry, or buttery, over which extends the one 
 large room where the nightly circles are held. They 
 are intended to show that no trap-doors afford to con- 
 federates the opportunity of communication from below. 
 
KITCHEN, PANTR Y AND DINING-ROOM. 49 
 
 The dining-room communicates directly with a large 
 apartment in the main part of the house, now used 
 for a general sitting and reception room, but which, 
 until the new hall was built, was the circle-room. The 
 kitchen and pantry are side by side, beyond the dining- 
 r^om, and separated from it by a lathed and plastered 
 partition, with doors joining from each into it. There 
 is also a door which gives communication from the 
 kitchen to the pantry through their dividing longitu- 
 dinal partition. The ceilings of kitchen and pantry 
 are lathed and plastered. The kitchen is an odd, dingy 
 little place with smoky walls and a worn floor, but it 
 affords a retreat for the family when the house is 
 crowded with visitors; and such of the latter .as at 
 such times are privileged to sit with " the boys " about 
 the cooking-stove, and smoke a pipe, and chat upon 
 the day's topics, are regarded with much of the same 
 envy as the favorite at Court, who is passed by obse- 
 quious lackeys into the presence, while the rest cool 
 their heels in the corridor. 
 
 I have had my days of favor, like the courtier, and 
 passed many a pleasant hour in this little kitchen, 
 in an atmosphere so dense with pipe- smoke that we 
 could barely see each other across the room. I have 
 sung my songs and told my comic stories, and heard 
 Horatio sing his songs, and William tell, in his own 
 pathetic way, of the cruelties he suffered in boyhood, 
 and I really fancied that by keeping on my good 
 behavior, I might be allowed to do my work pleasantly 
 and thoroughly. But — however, I will not anticipate. 
 
 If the reader will turn to the rear view of the Eddy 
 
50 SEARCHES FOR ERA UD. 
 
 homestead, he will observe in the gable of the L exten- 
 sion, just over the square window of William's cabinet, 
 two other windows. These light a cock-loft over the 
 circle-room. I confess that it never occurred to me to 
 go up there and see what sort of place it might be, as 
 after careful inspection of the room itself I was satisfied 
 that no communication existed between the two ; but 
 one afternoon a lady visitor, subject to trance obses- 
 sions, and professing to be influenced by a spirit at the 
 time, called my attention to the fact that, with all my 
 shrewdness, I had overlooked this cock-loft. Though 
 I could not imagine how spirit or mortal could detect 
 the omission in th£ pencilled notes in my pocket diary, 
 I nevertheless went up a ladder in the adjoining vesti- 
 bule, and, creeping through ancient cobwebs, from 
 rafter to rafter, I saw that there was nothing worth 
 coming to see. The mystery could not be solved 
 there. 
 
ABOVE AND BELOW. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 / 
 
 ■ PERSONAL MATTERS. 
 
 take it for granted that the conductors of two of 
 the great New York dailies would not have succes- 
 sively engaged me to investigate and describe the 
 phenomena at the Eddy homestead, if they had supposed 
 me either of unsound mind, credulous, partial, dishon- 
 est, or incompetent; and I, therefore, beg the numerous 
 company of correspondents who have addressed me 
 upon the subject, to spare themselves the trouble, and 
 me the annoyance, of their letters. 
 
 "Proffered advice stinks," sayeth an old Arabian 
 proverb more notable for strength than refinement. I 
 know what I am about, and mean to tell just what I 
 saw and how I saw it. To the impertinent people, of 
 many localities, whom I never laid eyes upon, who 
 ask of me to have secret writings read, lucky lottery 
 numbers disclosed, and to write theses upon Spiritual- 
 ism, to remove their skepticism, I have nothing to say 
 except that their letters go into the nearest grate. I 
 certainly do not care the value of a brass farthing 
 what they believe or disbelieve. If I truthfully report 
 
 53 
 
54 A DOCTOR IN TROUBLE. 
 
 the facts, each has the same chance as myself to make 
 his theory to fit them. 
 
 Imagine an Indiana physician sending a dirty pack- 
 age, stitched by a sewing machine, and coolly asking 
 me, a perfect stranger, to furnish him the ammunition 
 to blow up either himself or the Spiritualists, in the 
 following terms, which I give verbatim : 
 
 I have read all the subtile arguments of the Spiritualistic profes- 
 sors, am pretty well posted in all their talk of " conditions," &c, &c, 
 but 1 want a real material "sign," — a test that will be palpable and 
 beyond dispute. 
 
 I hereby enclose to you a test that " will convince the Jews," if it 
 can be unravelled. Here are several envelopes, each fastened by a 
 diflerent process, and all of difterent shape, that cannot be opened 
 without my knowing it. In the centre one are some words written 
 in a peculiar manner. 
 
 Now I would like to have this same envelope returned to me, as 
 it is, and with it also a description of the written words just as they 
 are written. This will convince me that there is an intelligence 
 beyond earthly intelligence in existence, and I shall find no difficulty 
 in ascribing this intelligence to disembodied spirits. If the kind 
 spirit will tell the number of envelopes and describe each, — tell 
 from what kind of a slip the paper was cut upon which the words 
 are written — it would of course make the matter more interesting. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 Why do I write you ? I will tell you. You appear to be like 
 myself, not yet convinced, yet interested enough to take some trouble 
 to test the matter further. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 I am now engaged upon an article on the subject of Spiritualism, 
 in which I shall explain — or attempt to explain — the whole matter 
 under three heads : First, Juglary ; second, Superstition ; and third, 
 Insanity. 
 
 I shall wait a reasonable time to hear from you before I continue 
 it, as a solution of this test will spoil all my arguments, speculations, 
 and sophisms. 
 
 And a St. Louis person asking to be told what lottery 
 ticket to buy, thus : 
 * * * Believing, if the manifestations are genuine, that 
 
A N A NX JO US MA I DEN. 5 5 
 
 they have the power to foretell coming events, &c, and seeing no 
 reasons why I may not ask a question through you and this letter, 
 I would especially beg to be informed of the number that will draw 
 the capital prize in the Louisville lottery, next November. 
 Hoping to hear from you soon, I remain, sir, yours truly. 
 
 Here is an Illinois damsel who seems to have more 
 affection for the neighbor who visited the gypsy camp 
 than for Lindley Murray : 
 
 Being very anxious to know something of the future, thought I 
 would write you and tell you what I wanted to know, and that if 
 you charged me anything, to tell me so in your answer, and I would 
 willingly pay you. Will you please tell me what year and day in 
 the month myself and my sister next oldest to me will be married. 
 Also give us a description of our future husbands and what their 
 occupation will be in life. 
 
 And will you please tell me how long it will be before my mother 
 will be married, she being a widdow lady. Also have a half-brother 
 who is owing a debt in another State ; would like to know if he 
 will ever pay that debt up. 
 
 Also there is a gentleman, near neighbor, visited camp of gypsies ; 
 would like to know if he had his fortune told while there ; also 
 please describe the lady he will marry. 
 
 One more example will suffice. This comes from 
 Alabama : 
 
 I would like to learn the history or genealogy for my family. All 
 I know is that one of my progenitors was a Stewart [steward?] in 
 some lord's family in Europe, and ran off and married the said lord's 
 daughter. I don't know the name of my progenitor (the given 
 name), or the name of the lord or his daughter. Please try to learn 
 what each of their names were, when married and where, and where 
 the lord resided, the names of his children and grandchildren down 
 to my father, what my father's name was and when he died, in fact, 
 all that can be gained in regard to the genealogy of my family. If 
 you will do so, I will be under lasting obligations to you, although a 
 stranger. 
 
 If, upon a revision of my MSS. for this work, I pre- 
 serve these communications for permanent reference, it 
 is in the hope that I may be passed over by that great 
 
56 CORRESPONDENCE OF THE EDDYS. 
 
 company of idle persons, who employ the time that 
 hangs heavy upon their hands to persecute those of 
 their fellow-men who are temporarily thrust before the 
 view of the public. I do not, for one moment, admit 
 the right of those who have never fitted themselves for 
 discussing profound subjects, to intrude their crude 
 notions and inconsequential personalities upon the 
 busy privacy of men engaged in the serious concerns 
 of life. 
 
 The Eddys get such letters as these by the score, 
 often as many as forty or fifty by every mail, and I 
 might make this volume more humorous, if not more 
 interesting, by quoting examples ; but I spare the 
 reader. 
 
 I have been greatly impressed by this evidence of the 
 wide interest in the subject of Spiritualism; as I have 
 also of the publicity that any novel or exciting story 
 gains by re-publication in the newspapers. I recollect 
 that Bayard Taylor told me once, that at the foot of the 
 Himalayas, in a garrison library, he encountered some of 
 his own works, and described the deep impression then 
 made upon his mind of the responsibility devolving upon 
 a person who writes for the press. I trust I shall bear 
 the lesson in mind in all that is written for these pages. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MOONLIGHT MATERIALIZATIONS. 
 
 UDE and uninviting as is the Eddy house itself, its 
 surrounding landscape is truly charming. Lying in 
 a valley, it affords from every window the view of 
 grassy slopes, backed by mountain peaks that catch the 
 drifting clouds on days of storm, and on those of sunshine 
 take on rich tints of purple and blue. Just back of the 
 house stretches a bottom pasture land, whose sod is so 
 bright a green that I have wished a score of times that one 
 of the Harts, or Smillie, or McEntee, or some other of 
 our landscapists could transfer it with its grazing herd 
 and noble background to canvas. The woods are just 
 beginning to clothe themselves in their royal autumn 
 hues; and from mountain foot to summit, crimson and 
 gold mix with the prevailing mass of green, like jewels 
 embroidered on nature's robe of state. But there appears 
 to be slight evidence that this scenery has exercised an 
 ennobling effect upon the inhabitants. They are usually 
 a prosaic set, and I have vainly watched for any respons- 
 ive glow when I have called their attention to the natural 
 beauties around us. The Eddys themselves form rather 
 
 57 
 
 
5 8 THE SURROUNDINGS. 
 
 an exception to the rule. True, they waste no enthusiasm 
 upon their familiar hills and valley, but the tenderness of 
 their hearts is shown in the gathering of pet pigeons, 
 dogs, parrots, ducks, and chickens, about them, and their 
 innate refinement, by the hours snatched from menial 
 toil, to water and trim their plants and flowers. The 
 neighboring graveyard is a neglected plot of weeds, but 
 their family enclosure is bordered by maples, and the 
 graves are tended by loving hands. The headstone over 
 poor Mrs. Eddy is so characteristic of the altered view 
 of the change called death that a belief in Spiritualism 
 begets, that I give a sketch of it. 
 
 English visitors to this place would find abundant 
 relaxation in long walks or mountain climbing, but we 
 Americans avail ourselves little of the privilege. In the 
 depths of the woods the black bear stills prowls ; foxes 
 abound ; sables, mink, raccoons, hedgehogs, and occasion- 
 ally panthers, await the pursuit of the hunter; and 
 speckled trout throng the cold mountain streams to a 
 sufficient extent to afford sport to the votaries of the rod 
 and fly. But the minds of the people who come from far 
 and near to this Vermont homestead, are so bent upon 
 the pursuit of the marvellous, that all day long they sit 
 and talk of last night's circle and past wonderful personal 
 experiences, until one fairly gets a surfeit of the subject. 
 
 They are a motley crowd, in sooth. Ladies and gentle- 
 men; editors, lawyers, divines and ex-divines; inventors, 
 architects, farmers ; pedlers of magnetic salves and myste- 
 rious nostrums; long-haired men and short-haired women; 
 the " crowing hens " of Fowler, and the cackling cocks, 
 their fitting mates ; women with an idea, and plenty of men 
 
THE VISITORS AT THE HOMESTEAD. 61 
 
 and women without any to speak of; people of sense and 
 people of nonsense ; sickly dreamers who prate of 
 " interiors ' and " conditions " and " spheres " as intelli- 
 gently as a learned pig or a chattering magpie ; clair- 
 voyants and "healers," real and bogus; phrenologists, 
 who read bumps without feeling them, under " spirit 
 direction"; mediums for tipping, rapping, and every 
 imaginable form of modern spiritual phenomena; 
 " apostles " with one and two arms ; people from the 
 most distant and widely-separated localities; nice, clever 
 people whom one is glad to meet and sorry to part from ; 
 and people who shed a magnetism as disagreeable as 
 dirty water or the perfume of the Fetis-Americanus. 
 They come and go, singly and otherwise ; some after a 
 day's stay, convinced that they have been cheated, but 
 the vast majority astounded and perplexed beyond expres- 
 sion by what their eyes have seen and their ears heard. 
 
 Through all, the family jog on in the even tenor of 
 their unsystematic way, receiving new-comers with dis- 
 trust, and letting life slide after a happy-go-lucky fashion. 
 Those who stay longest with them have the most 
 confidence in their mediumship, for they discover that 
 their external misanthropy and curtness are the outcome 
 of years of sorrow and injustice, the result of poor educa- 
 tion and bad training. More than any man I ever met, 
 William Eddy lives an interior life ; and to be in relation, 
 or supposed relation, with the people of the Silent Land, 
 seems as natural to him as it ever was to the ecstatics of 
 the early centuries or the recluses of Brahma. 
 
 Among the few favorite localities of the neighborhood 
 
 are " Honto's cave " and Santum's grave, of both of 
 3 
 
6 2 "HON TO 'S CA VE. n 
 
 which the artist has supplied illustrations from sketches 
 taken on the spot. 
 
 The term cave is a misnomer in this instance, for the 
 rude apartment by which the sprightly squaw's memory 
 will be perpetuated is, like the "Cave" in Central Park, 
 formed by the leaning of one great fragment of rock 
 against another. It lies in dense shadow at the bottom 
 of a ravine, so shrouded in foliage that the cheerful sun- 
 light scarcely penetrates the spot even at high noon. A 
 clear mountain brook running through it ceaselessly 
 awakens its tiny echoes, and the surface of its rocky walls 
 is scarred in so curious a manner as to convey the 
 impression that the furrows are the half-effaced inscrip- 
 tions of some pre-historic people. A path, scarcely prac- 
 ticable for a wider foot than that of the chamois or the 
 mountain goat, runs along one of the steep banks, and 
 the wood resounds with the bubble of the streamlet. 
 
 The sketch of the cave was drawn by Mr. Kappes 
 from nature, the figures only being supplied from a 
 published account of a spiritual seance held there on the 
 24th of May 1874, and the descriptions of eye-witnesses. 
 There were present on the occasion in question, among 
 others the following persons, who may be referred to in 
 corroboration of my story ; Mr. Andrew Beebe, Ludlow, 
 Mass. ; Charles Wakefield, Boston ; James Little, Lake 
 George, N. Y. ; Mrs. Caroline Goss, Hudson, Wisconsin 
 (West Conson, Horatio wrote it, and perhaps " Hudson " 
 means Madison) ; Mary E. Jewett and Albert Frost, 
 Rutland, Vt. ; and the Eddy family. 
 
 The night was warm, and a full moon rode high in the 
 heavens. The company assembled at an early hour, and 
 seated themselves on benches, formed by laying boards 
 
HONTO'S CAVE 
 
INDIAN GHOSTS. 65 
 
 on convenient bowlders. In the arched mouth of the 
 cave, Messrs. Saley and Frost had constructed a rude 
 framework of joists, to support a curtain of shawls; green 
 branches were piled in the farther end, so as to form a 
 backing ; and boards, loosely laid across the little brook, 
 made a platform upon which the medium might sit on a 
 camp-stool. In composing his sketch, the artist has been 
 obliged to omit the curtain and most of the bough back- 
 ing, so as to permit the light to shine through, and show 
 the arrangement of the platform and framing. 
 
 The spectators at this weird gathering sat silent for 
 awhile, and the stillness of the forest was broken only 
 by the noise of the brook, the chirp of insects, and 
 the rustle of the leaves as they stirred in the warm wind 
 of spring. Suddenly the curtain was pushed aside, and 
 the form of an Indian, fully accoutred, came out, stepped 
 into the stream, and, stooping, made the motion of drink- 
 ing some water from his hand. All eyes were riveted 
 upon him, when some one suddenly exclaimed : " See ! 
 — up there — on the rock ! " and high overhead appeared 
 the giant spirit form of Santum in bold relief against the 
 moonlit sky. Presently an Indian squaw was seen upon 
 the verge of the rocky ledge to the right, peering down 
 upon the startled group. Thus, at one time, three ghostly 
 visitors were in sight, and while the audience gazed, all 
 three disappeared. Then successively appeared at the 
 cave's mouth, Honto, who knelt and made as if drinking 
 from the brook, and several other red squaws and chiefs, 
 each dressed after his or her own fashion, with plumes 
 and beads, and the other braveries these simple aborigines 
 love so well ; William Eddy, meanwhile, talking within 
 the cave so as to be heard by all. 
 
66 SANTUM'S GRAVE. 
 
 A spirit-voice presently called out that they had been 
 there long enough, and if they would go to the old Indian 
 camp-ground hard by, more wonders would be shown 
 them. The spot indicated is a level plateau not far from 
 the Eddy house, and bears the traces of former councils 
 in a circle of ancient hearths, where, beneath the sod, are 
 to be found the vestiges of fires long since extinguished. 
 Great maples, beeches, and here and there an oak, stand 
 about the camping ground; giant sentinels, beneath 
 whose shade, within the memory of men now living, the 
 relics of once powerful tribes were accustomed to gather 
 from time to time to celebrate their feasts. At one side 
 a flat bowlder set on end, marks the spot where Santum t 
 (or, perhaps, in view of his frequent appearance before 
 my eyes in his spiritual form, I should say his body)" was 
 buried. He might, if one familiar with the classics should 
 suggest it, say to me upon some occasion when we should 
 meet in presence of the right kind of a medium, what 
 Socrates did to his friend Crito, when asked by the latter 
 where and how they should bury him. " Bury me in any 
 way you please, if you can catch me to bury. . . . Say, rather, 
 Crito, say if you love me, where shall you bury my body." 
 
 Santum's tumulus has almost- disappeared under the 
 wash of a thousand rains, and a large maple, whose 
 trunk at four feet from the ground measures four feet 
 seven inches in girth, has sent its roots into the chief- 
 tain's dust, and, for aught 1 know, may have incorpo- 
 rated it in the cells and fibres of its own heart. Upon 
 the sketch will be noticed a rude cross chiselled in the 
 stone by one of the Eddy boys. 
 
 But, to resume our story : 
 
AN EDITOR 'S GHOST. 67 
 
 Our wonder-seekers having reached the place indi- 
 cated by the spirit-voice, hastily improvised a " cab- 
 inet" by pinning some shawls around the trunks of 
 three trees, and William entered it. After a brief in- 
 terval, the phantom shape of Achsa Sprague, a medium- 
 istic speaker of some note among the Spiritists, emerged, 
 and in a natural voice, addressed her hearers upon the 
 one absorbing topic for about fifteen minutes ; her form 
 and the very play of her features being clearly revealed 
 in the bright moonlight. She was followed by Mrs. 
 Goss' brother, who walked some twenty feet from the 
 " cabinet ; *' and next by an Indian, who ventured a like 
 distance away from his medium, and then swung him- 
 self up on the branch of a tree and vanished. 
 
 The evening's wonders closed with the appearance 
 of the spirit of the late William White, editor of the 
 Banner of Light, the principal organ to the new 
 creed. Mr. White was dressed in black broad-cloth, 
 and had on a white shirt with studs in the bosom, 
 whereas William wore his usual rough working suit, 
 and brown check shirt without collar or cuffs. In his 
 hand the spirit held a copy of the journal he once 
 edited, which he opened, and showed the characteristic 
 heading that the publication of thirty-five successive 
 volumes has made familiar to thousands of persons. 
 
 The next morning Messrs. Saley and Swift revisited 
 the cave to search for foot-prints in the soft earth, at 
 the places where any mortal climbing the rocks would, 
 of necessity, have trodden, but there were none to be 
 seen. The spectres had materialized themselves on the spots 
 where they had respectively been seen. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 PORTENTS AND MARVELS. 
 
 IF a competent person were to collect and arrange in 
 picturesque form all the psychological experiences of 
 the Eddy family, as related by them, the result would 
 be a book of as romantic interest as the story of Zschokke's 
 life. But I hardly think that the mere gift of clairvoyance, 
 to say nothing of absolute mediumship can be esteemed 
 a great personal blessing. I doubt if man's relations to 
 his own world are not so exacting as to make it the 
 reverse of beneficial, at least to himself, to be in constant 
 and close sympathy with the other. The visions of the 
 lucide are beatific, but do they not make him less satisfied 
 to pursue his homely round of duty upon re-awakening ? 
 If one goes from bright sunshine into a cellar his eye 
 feels the darkness more dense than it really is. The 
 place has not changed since he last left it, only his iris is 
 contracted. 
 
 This question forces itself upbn the thoughtful 
 observer at Chittenden in a peculiar manner. Seeing 
 and hearing so many marvels in connection with this 
 
 family and its history, the cut bono query will intrude in 
 
 68 
 
ARE MEDIUMS NECESSAR Y? 69 
 
 spite of oneself. Granted that all these foreseeings, 
 portents, apparitions, levitations, obsessions, physical phe- 
 nomena, and materializations have occurred, in what 
 respect have they profited the seers and mediums ? What 
 good have they reaped from them ? And if the answer 
 is none, then why should they be made the victims of 
 the visits of good angels or the pranks of evil spirits ? 
 These are questions easily asked — any child might ask 
 them — but who can answer? 
 
 Except — and perhaps this is the true solution — that if 
 there is such a thing as a Spirit World ; and that that 
 world can get into relations with us ; and that it is the 
 complement and fruit, the outcome and essence, the last 
 distillation of all things and forms and potencies that we 
 know of ; and it is essential for man's progress that he 
 should be assured of immortality — then, in such case, 
 people constituted like these Eddys are necessary to the 
 general welfare, and must be content to suffer and even 
 die in the interest of the race. It requires a rare eleva- 
 tion of character to cheerfully endure martyrdom; and if 
 William and Horatio and Mary and Delia and Webster, 
 have grown sensitive, fretful, and morose in the course of 
 all these leaden-footed, sorrow-burdened years, I, for one, 
 cannot blame them. I am just selfish enough to ask 
 Heaven to preserve me from the like experience ! 
 
 Now if any of my valued friends among the men of 
 science, here and abroad, should feel disposed to stop 
 reading just at this point, because I seriously discuss these 
 psychological phenomena as objective and not subjective, 
 it will be a pity ; for if they went to this homestead on a 
 vacation visit, and set to work without fear or favor to 
 
70 MAGNETISM AND MESMERISM. 
 
 observe, classify, analyze, and describe what they heard, 
 saw, and felt, they, too, might find themselves flinging 
 their pre-conceived notions behind the grate, and calling 
 things by their righfe names. 
 
 The case-hardened skeptic, driven like me, from his 
 first position of ascribing all these Eddy phenomena to 
 trickery, and anxious to believe anything or everything 
 rather than admit them to be spiritualistic, will ask me 
 to try if they are not electrical, magnetic, mesmeric or 
 odic in their character. Failing all these, he, who prob- 
 ably never before allowed the idea of a personal devil to 
 be mentioned without rebuke, may, as a Rutland editor 
 did the other day in a conversation we held together, 
 say, it is all the work of the Father of Lies himself. This 
 is good sound Catholic doctrine, and an impregnable 
 refuge. Does not Chrysostom say : Quod est in terra in 
 terra maneat, si non a diabolo exfossicm ? Having this in 
 view, did not Bishop Viviers, in a pastoral letter published 
 in the Roman Catholic Guardian in 1868, remark : " Doubt- 
 less there are relations between the intelligence of men 
 and the supernatural world of spirits, * but 
 
 they (/. e. the faithful) should not less certainly be con- 
 vinced that these experiments are one of the thousand 
 ruses of Satan to cause souls to perish ? " 
 
 Now, as to the matter of electricity, that, as I have 
 before observed, has long since been settled in the negative 
 by Professor Hare, Mr. Varley, Mr. Crookes, and others ; 
 while the Committee of the London Dialectical Society 
 cover the whole ground by saying that : " No philosophi- 
 cal explanation of them has yet been arrived at." As to 
 animal magnetism, the Society's sub-committee No. 2 
 
UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN SPIRITS. 71 
 
 report that they " have not discovered any conditions 
 identical with those ordinarily deemed necessary to the 
 production of the so-called electro-biological or mesmeric 
 phenomena — but often the reverse." And as to their 
 being the product of odic anterior causes, the great dis- 
 coverer of Od himself ought to be good authority. 
 
 Baron von Reichenbach attended a circle in London, 
 the striking incidents of which he has described ; and 
 he adds that he regards " the great influences of Od upon 
 the human spirit as the mere physical side of the matter 
 — the roots by which it adheres firmly to the ground; " 
 and he is thankful to see the day when all his former 
 discoveries show themselves as the portal through which 
 it is possible for him " to go forward into the spiritual 
 department." (Epes Sargent's " Planchette," p. 241.) 
 
 Where will we land, then, but in the camp of the 
 enemy — in the arms of the Spiritists ? Well, if, like Saul 
 of Tarsus, we are to be knocked off our high horses of 
 prejudice and unbelief, and blinded by the great new 
 light that is to pour upon us from the "gates ajar," let us 
 at least console ourselves that we are only getting back 
 to where our ancestors and the ancestors of the whole 
 race stood from the remotest ages. The Hindoo Vedas, 
 Puranas, Bhagavat-Gita, and Ramayanas ; the Chinese 
 Confucian writings ; the Koran ; the discourses of the 
 Roman and Grecian sages ; the Egyptian records ; the 
 Persian Zend-Avesta; the Jewish Kabbala; and, lastly, 
 the Christian Bible, attest that a belief in the ministration 
 of good and evil spirits prevailed among all peoples, in 
 all times. These Eddys hear spirit-voices calling to 
 them in the night-watches, and I myself have heard them 
 3 
 
72 / ANCIENT MEDIUMS. 
 
 in the circle-room singing, whispering, and delivering dis- 
 courses upon their spirit-life. This is strange, no doubt, 
 and hard to believe, but it is no new experience. 
 
 Herodotus mentions an Egyptian monarch who returned 
 to earth some time after his physical death and talked to 
 his people ; the famous statue of Memnon at Thebes, 
 which gave forth melodious sounds when first struck by 
 the sun's morning rays, was so haunted by the invisibles, 
 that spirit-voices and spirit-music were heard issuing 
 from it for ages. Strabo, ^Elius Gallus, Demetrius, and 
 others attest this fact. 
 
 J. M. Peebles, tells in his scholarly book, of the man 
 Agrippa, of the XVth Century, who was not more 
 remarkable for his knowledge of languages and wide 
 range of scholarship than for his spiritual gifts. When 
 at the Court of John George, Elector of Saxony, with 
 the great Erasmus, he was solicited to call up the 
 spirit of Tully. Arranging his audience (as these 
 Eddys arrange theirs), he caused Tully to appear upon 
 the rostrum, where he repeated his oration for Roscius 
 " with such astonishing animation, exaltation of spirit, ' 
 and soul-stirring gestures, that all present, like the 
 Romans of old, were ready to pronounce his client 
 innocent of every charge brought against him." 
 
 The mere quotation of Bible passages narrating the 
 visits of talking and dumb spirits to men, would make 
 a chapter by itself; so I will merely refer to a few that 
 I find enumerated in a stray volume (Peebles' " Seers 
 of the Ages " ) loaned me from a neighboring house, 
 at the time these lines were written. They are : Gene- 
 sis xix., i ; xviii., 1-2 ; xxxii., xvi., 7 ; Ex. iii.; 1 Kings, 
 
ANIMALS AS MEDIUMS. 75 
 
 xix., 5 ; Num. xxii.,31 ; 1 Sam. xxviii., 14; Jobiv., 14-17; 
 Dan. ix., 21; x., 9-10; x., 18; viii., 15-16; Acts vii., 
 35; Ezekiel viii., 2; xi., 1. I have recently read over 
 again with singular interest, the passage in 1 Samuel, 
 above cited, as it so well describes the process of 
 " materialization " of which I have seen so many- 
 examples at the Eddys'. 
 
 The experiences of these wonderful Eddys, duplicate 
 those of ancient mediums to so minute a degree, 
 that even their dumb animals have been made to 
 speak after the fashion of Balaam's ass. They killed, 
 a while ago, by accident, an old goose which used 
 to get under the windows, some stormy night and 
 say, in sepulchral tones, " God save my poor gos- 
 lings ! " and " Oh, dear! what shall I do ?" and some- 
 times cry out "Murder!" Horatio Eddy, in telling 
 me this tough yarn, said that of course he did not 
 believe that the bird's organs of speech were so 
 changed that it could utter words like a Christian, 
 but that " George Dix " or some other jovial spirit 
 " materialized " a voice close to the creature's mouth. 
 William Eddy and several other witnesses assure me 
 that the story is no lie, they having heard the voice not 
 once, but frequently. 
 
 My friend, Richard A. Proctor, in one of his astro- 
 nomical lectures, told us that so far from the expanse 
 of heaven being the abode of peace and quiet, it was 
 the scene of terrific commotion and violence — thus 
 destroying many pretty conceits of the poets. In like 
 manner our notions of the future life are rudely dis- 
 turbed by the Eddy phenomena and others of like 
 
76 EXPLANA TIONS B Y PLEA SANT A UTHORS. 
 
 character. It is no longer a Valley of Shadows and 
 
 repose, but a busy scene of domestic occupation; 
 
 while the singing and talking phantoms call upon 
 
 Longfellow to re-write his " Song of the Silent Land," 
 
 for it seems a land of speech and song, of music and 
 
 poetry 
 
 " O Land ! O Land ! 
 
 For all the broken-hearted, 
 
 The mildest herald by our fate allotted, 
 
 Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand 
 
 To lead us with a gentle hand 
 
 Into the land of the great Departed ; 
 
 Into the Silent Land." 
 
 I have to laugh when I recall Proctor's owly wisdom 
 (see his " Borderland of Science ") in explaining away 
 all ghosts, by the discovery that the supposed shade of 
 a certain dear one at his bedside, resolved itself into a 
 student gown and rowing-belt. He is a jolly compan- 
 ion and an honorable fellow, and if he could stop at 
 Chittenden one week with me, I warrant he would not 
 only take a more cheerful view of the other life, but 
 write a new volume ; perhaps, with the title " Another 
 World than Ours." And my most valued correspond- 
 ent, Mr. Charles W. Upham, author of the noble work 
 on Salem Witchcraft, who so complacently argues 
 away all supernatural causes for the phenomena of 
 1692 by crediting Tituba, Ann Proctor, and the other 
 " Afflicted Children " with a thaumaturgic deftness 
 that would entitle them to rank with the greatest of 
 Chinese jugglers — how amazed would he not be to "sit 
 beside me and see not only living materialized spirits, 
 but even evanescent animals and flowers produced ! 
 
DISCOMFITURE OF A TRIO. 77 
 
 This is a bad place for materialists in general, and if 
 Tyndall should gome to this country again he had best 
 avoid Chittenden. We had three of the kind there with- 
 in a week— a lawyer, an artist, and an inventor. When 
 they first came they were as spry with their arguments. as 
 though fresh from the reading of Vogt, Moleschott, or 
 Feuerbach ; denying, as Epes Sargent expresses it, with 
 the asperity of partisanship, all evidences of a psychical 
 nature in man, and seeming to take it as a personal 
 affront if credited with immortal souls. 
 
 But when these intelligent men sat evening after even- 
 ing and saw an average of a dozen ghosts a night stand 
 in their presence, and show delight at being recognized 
 by their personal friends, and actually heard some of 
 them speak in clear, natural voices, their discomfiture was 
 comical to behold. Tied to the anchorage of years of 
 skepticism, unable to drift away into the open sea that 
 suddenly lay before them— an Atlantic of thought with 
 unknown countries beyond it— their little shallops fell to 
 rocking and pitching them about, until they seemed in 
 direful plight. One, the toughest customer of the three, 
 the inventor, saw several of his family connection and 
 was converted from unbelief; the second, the lawyer, 
 and a man of fine intellectual powers, departed, big with 
 essays against all religions, and halting between two 
 opinions ; the artist is still thinking. 
 
 It would be amusing, if it were not pitiful, to see men 
 able to put two grammatical sentences together, writing 
 crude criticisms and propagating falsehoods about the 
 Eddy manifestations, miles away from the place. They 
 must concede some shrewdness and common-sense to 
 
78 HOSTILITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 others, and conceive the possibility that it may be as hard 
 to humbug me as themselves. 
 
 I have already said that there are things about the 
 mediums, their antecedents, and their phenomena, to 
 arouse distrust. But let any fair man stay there a week 
 or two, take time to hear both sides of every story, and 
 watch what occurs, and, my word for it, he will carry away 
 food for reflection to last him the rest of his natural life. 
 
 It is difficult to understand the hostility of the Church, 
 whose aggressive side is so well shown in the behavior 
 of the Methodist neighbors of the Eddys, to Spiritism, 
 for is it not its keenest and strongest weapon of offence 
 against the materialists? Against a class of profound 
 thinkers, who exclude Faith and demand sensuous proofs 
 of the future existence of man, what argument can be 
 adduced but the fact that our friends actually re-visit us 
 after death and talk to us face to face ? Is not the spread 
 of materialism the direct consequence of the exclusion of 
 facts which, if true, this modern Spiritism has re-veri- 
 fied, from religious creeds and scientific consideration ? 
 
 In the early days of the Church the ministration of 
 spirits was unhesitatingly believed by the Fathers, and 
 the Catholic body holds to it to this day. Protestantism 
 apparently made its fatal mistake when it scouted it, 
 and it might have been better for Calvin and Luther if 
 they had honestly confessed that their own personal 
 experiences in this direction were something else than 
 the work of the devil. If modern Spiritualism should 
 prove true, their followers would be in the condition 
 well-defined by Beattie : 
 
 " So fares the system-building sage, 
 Who, plodding on from youth to age, 
 
PHENOMENA OF APPARITIONS, 79 
 
 Has proved all other reasoners fools, 
 And bound all nature by his rules ; 
 So fares he in that dreadful hour 
 When injured Truth exerts her power 
 Some new phenometton to raise, 
 Which, bursting on his frightened gare, 
 From its proud summit to the ground, 
 Proves the whole edifice unsound." 
 
 But let us leave polemics to the doctors and return 
 to our story. 
 
 Writers upon the subject that we are now discussing, 
 offer various hypotheses to account for the production 
 of visible spectral forms, by the beings of the other 
 world. Some contend that they are created out of the 
 subtle particles existing in the atmosphere, and have a 
 positive, if evanescent, material existence ; while others 
 deny their actuality and attribute their being seen 
 to psychological control of our natural senses of 
 sight, hearing, and touch; in like manner as the 
 mesmerist obliges his patient to see, hear, taste, and 
 feel whatsoever he may call up in his own mind. In 
 my opinion, of course supposing that the tales are not 
 bald fiction, the phenomena may be grouped into two 
 classes — apparitions seen only by one or more sensi- 
 tives or lucides, and those visible to all without regard 
 to their lucidity; and they should be separately 
 considered. 
 
 The experiences of the Eddys are of both kinds. 
 Sometimes a phantom has been seen only by the sick 
 or dying; sometimes by those in health, as forerun- 
 ners of disaster impending over themselves or others; 
 and sometimes in the materialized condition, so that 
 everybody in the house, believers as well as unbelievers, 
 
80 THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE. 
 
 perceived them equally well. The occurrence illus- 
 trated in the sketch of the phantom carriage was of 
 this character. On a cold winter night, just before 
 bed-time, the family were gathered in the sitting- 
 room, when they heard the noise of a carriage coming 
 rapidly along the road from the northward. The 
 circumstance was so strange, the ground being covered 
 with snow which would prevent the noise of wheels 
 being heard, that all went to the front windows to 
 look. A full moon, 
 
 " * * * shining bright on the new-fallen snow, 
 Gave a lustre of mid-day to objects below ;" 
 
 — and they saw an old-fashioned, open carriage, drawn 
 
 by a pair of white horses with plumes on their heads, 
 
 turn rapidly into the yard and stop. 
 
 Rushing to the back door and flinging it open, 
 there stood the equipage before their astonished eyes. 
 On the back seat was a lady, dressed in Scotch plaid 
 and furs, with a feather in her bonnet. She looked 
 kindly at them and bowed, but said nothing. On his 
 high box sat the driver, a thistle cockade in his hat 
 and a capacious coat with a standing collar muffling 
 him to his chin. Every buckle and trapping of the 
 harness was plainly revealed by the moonlight, and 
 even the ornamental scroll-work on the coach-panels. 
 
 The family, with characteristic rustic bashfulness, 
 said nothing, waiting for the grand lady to manifest 
 her pleasure. No one doubted for an instant the real- 
 ity of what they saw, and even the skeptical and hard- 
 hearted father moved to the door so as to be ready to 
 do what might be required for the belated traveler. 
 
A PORTENT OF DEATH. 83 
 
 But, as all eyes were fixed upon her, she and her equip- 
 age began to fade. The garden fence and other objects, 
 previously concealed behind the opaque bodies of the 
 carriage and horses, began to show through, and in a 
 moment the whole thing vanished into the air, leaving 
 the spectators lost in amazement. Old Mr. Eddy at 
 once exclaimed that his wife and her mother had been 
 up to some of their devilish witchcraft again ; but they 
 knew that it was a portent of somebody's death. The 
 boys, then only ten or twelve years old, ran for the 
 lantern and searched all over the road and yard for 
 wheel-tracks, but their quest was fruitless. The phan- 
 toms had disappeared, without leaving the slightest 
 impression on the snow. Two months later the grand- 
 mother died. 
 
 Although I dislike to break the sequence of my nar- 
 rative, I will state, that in a circle one night I held a 
 conversation about this apparition with a spirit-voice, 
 which informed me that the phantom lady was a Scotch 
 ancestress of Mrs. Eddy, who came to warn them of 
 old Mrs. MacComb's death. And since then, at another 
 seance, Mrs. Eddy herself confirmed the fact. 
 
 Portents have occurred before the death of each mem- 
 ber of the family, but always entirely different in char- 
 acter from the predecessors, and happening unexpect- 
 edly. Mrs. Eddy, the mother of these children, 
 deceased in 1873 after a lingering illness. During the 
 whole time she lay in bed, manifestations of the pres- 
 ence of the departed were frequent. When the surviv- 
 ing children were wearied out with watching, Mrs. 
 Eddy would send them to bed under the pretence that 
 
84 DEA TH OF MRS. EDD Y. 
 
 she needed quiet, and they, watching secretly, would 
 see their dead sister Miranda's spirit in materialized 
 form, doing the necessary offices for the invalid. They 
 would hear her talking with their motherland when it 
 was necessary to turn her, the spirit, with the help of 
 other spirits, would do it. 
 
 One day, as they sat at dinner, soft strains of music 
 came through the open door, and going outside, they 
 heard sweet airs played at the corner of the house, by 
 an invisible harp and flute, the sound gradually reced- 
 ing and dying away on the air. A week before she 
 breathed her last, her own dead mother, to warn whom 
 the phantom lady came in her unsubstantial coach, 
 appeared in materialized form to them all, bearing a 
 basket of white roses in her hand. She told them that 
 Mrs. Eddy would soon come " over the river " to her, 
 and she was waiting to welcome her on the farther 
 shore. The old lady wore the same dress as in life — 
 a brown woolen frock, a round calico cape, a check 
 apron, and a cap on her head ; her scissors hung as 
 usual at her side, and no detail was lacking to make 
 her identification complete. She left a message for 
 Horatio, to the effect that many years before, when 
 about starting on a journey, she had hidden a string 
 of gold beads in a snuff-box in the cellar wall ; and 
 directed him to find it and give the necklace to his 
 youngest sister to wear for her sake. Search was made, 
 off and on, for several months, and finally the box and 
 contents were discovered by Horatio behind a stone in 
 the north side of the cellar wall. The artist has 
 sketched them, and they accompany this chapter. 
 
C/?.4/voM0T//£tfs /l/i'r/qs/^ *%?CA. 
 
 *m 
 
 f 1 
 
 #%Am\mx -?: 
 
 ! 
 
 %\ f 
 
 ! 
 
 m ■ 
 
 m 
 
 m iii 
 
 [fll Jl-tjij! 
 
 Zf.-e/v^/y/^/.^/rs J/ys/w <3,;>r. 
 
 HIDDEN TREASURES. 
 
 I 
 
THE SPIRIT'S PORTRAIT. 87 
 
 Horatio, just before his mother's decease, was absent 
 from home, and at her request was sent for. Delia 
 went to the table and wrote the letter of recall ; and, 
 leaving it open while searching for an envelope in 
 another room, she found upon her return that a post- 
 script had been added by the spirit of Miranda, and signed 
 with her familiar autograph. The good lady finally- 
 closed her eyes upon the scene of so much misery and 
 suffering ; but she did not go far away, for before the 
 funeral she " materialized " in Delia's presence, and 
 directed her to remove the crape they had hung on the 
 door, there being, she said, occasion for rejoicing rather 
 than for mourning. 
 
 How she looked on this occasion I can perfectly 
 understand, for I have seen her " materialized " on 
 several occasions, and heard her speak, as I will more 
 fully describe in a future chapter. 
 
 Mr. Owen relates, at pages 328 and 329 of his 
 "Debatable Land," three cases of ghostly wagons and 
 carriages being heard in England and the United 
 States, but they were not precursors of death. Neither 
 was the frightful apparition, related by Mrs. Crowe, in 
 her " Night Side of Nature," page 413, of the horse and 
 cart at Haverhill, Mass., with its fierce-looking driver 
 and the fearful gray-haired woman lashed to the cart, 
 writhing and struggling to get free. 
 
 Nor the "Wild Troop of Rodenstein," a spectral rob- 
 ber band, that at certain times swept along the road 
 between the castles of Rodenstein and Schnellert ; invisi- 
 ble, but making the ground shake and the air resound 
 with the noise of their phantom horses and carriages, 
 
88 SPECTRAL BEASTS. 
 
 and barking dogs and cracking whips. Nor the herds of 
 ghostly beasts, driven by a spectral herdsman accompa- 
 nied by his long-haired, black dog, that cross the coun- 
 try in another part of Germany. 
 
 These instances serve to show that something, call it 
 spirits or what we will, has the power to call into a 
 temporary but altogether deceptive existence, the forms 
 of animals, carriages and men ; and my object in refer- 
 ring to them is to divest the phantom-carriage incident, 
 in the Eddy family history, of much of the air of improb- 
 ability that it would have if suffered to stand alone 
 without the citation of similar phenomena happening 
 elsewhere. 
 
 The discovery of the law by which these things can 
 be made to occur, is among the most interesting of the 
 results that promise to reward the labors of the scien- 
 tific investigator. When it is demonstrated how motion 
 can be conveyed to the phantasmal imitations of inani- 
 mate objects, like a wagon, and life be temporarily 
 imparted to the ghostly shapes of animals, it will evi- 
 dently be necessary for us to reconstruct our present 
 beliefs as to the nature of force, and the limits of its 
 manifestation. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MORE PROPHETIC WARNING. 
 
 Y narrative, being in fact a narrative, not a mere 
 report of researches in the phenomena of Spirit- 
 ualism, will embrace things personally experi- 
 enced, and things reported to me by credible witnesses. 
 Thus three of my chapters have told the story of the 
 outer life of the Eddys, and, including this one, two have 
 been devoted to their inner life, which in their case is 
 the more pleasant and important of the two. " In their 
 case " did I say ?— why not in every case? This inner 
 life, with its hidden mysteries, its undiscovered laws, its 
 unmeasured possibilities! Why, look at the mere 
 matter of the memory. When I was last in England, 
 Professor F. Crace Calvert, F. R. S., the well-known 
 carbolic-acid exploiter, told me a curious bit of personal 
 history that occurs to me just at this juncture. He was 
 born in England, but when he had reached the age of 
 eleven, his father took up his residence in France, and ' 
 for twelve years the boy never spoke or heard spoken a 
 work of English. Then he married an English girl 
 and returned home. At this time, when he was at 
 
 89 
 
90 LIVING THREE LIVES. 
 
 work with grammar and dictionary re-learning his mother- 
 tongue, of which he had wholly lost the use, he talked 
 nothing but English in his sleep ; and his wife says he 
 talked a good deal of it. 
 
 Coleridge mentions a somewhat similar case in his 
 " Biographia Literaria," that of an ignorant girl, who 
 " during a fever talked incessantly in Latin, Greek, and 
 Hebrew; and who, it was afterwards discovered, had 
 lived with a learned man who was a great Hebraist." 
 Coleridge says of the wonderful power of memory, as 
 suggested by this case, that " this, perchance, is the dread 
 book of judgment, in the mysterious hieroglyphics of which 
 every idle word is recorded." 
 
 The Eddys, we may say, live three distinct lives : — 
 one external; and one conscious and one unconscious 
 internal life The first is the common lot of us all; in 
 the second they see spiritual things while otherwise in 
 their normal condition, and remember what they see; the 
 third is the state of deep trance, into which William 
 invariably enters when sitting for the " materializations ; " 
 and into which Horatio and the others fall when obsessed 
 by other spirits who communicate orally to their personal 
 friends, or when levitated, or when sitting for powerful 
 physical manifestations in the light or dark. 
 
 Upon recovering from this latter condition, the medium 
 seems to remember nothing that has befallen him, except 
 upon those rare occasions when William, like the ancient 
 Epimenides and Corfidius, has left his body dead and 
 wandered in the supernal spheres, bringing back accounts 
 of what he had seen and heard among the immortals. 
 
MYSTERIOUS SHADOW OF MR. EDDY. 91 
 
 I am well aware that the materialization of spirits, is 
 what the public is most anxious to hear about, but I 
 cannot take up that phase of the subject, before at least 
 fkimming the surface of this family history for the other 
 marvellous experiences to which its members have been 
 subjected. It would be like Columbus returning from his 
 gold hunt in the new country with no account of its 
 geography, fauna, flora, or human inhabitants. The 
 stories I am recording were not gathered at appointed 
 sittings, at which the narrator might have been tempted 
 to stretch fancy to help make literary sensations ; but in 
 general social conversation, over our pipes around the 
 evening fire, as the discussion of varied topics drew them 
 out. And in every case they have been attested by 
 more than one witness. For the present we will occupy 
 ourselves with more familiar phases of the mediumship. 
 There will be abundant opportunity for me to present the 
 materialization question in its most novel and interesting 
 aspects. 
 
 We were upon the subject of portents fore-running 
 death, and in my last chapter I described some that befell, 
 before Mrs. Eddy, the mother, left this world for the 
 other. About a year before the father died, he retired 
 one night, in his usual health to his sleeping-room in the 
 L part, leaving the family in the sitting-room. In a few 
 moments they were startled by seeing him, or what 
 seemed himself, standing in the door leading into the 
 front hall, with his outer clothing removed. The follow- 
 ing diagram will show that it was impossible for him to 
 have reached the place without passing directly through 
 
9 2 
 
 A SPIRIT VISITOR. 
 
 the room they were in, and so account for their alarm : 
 
 A is the sitting-room ; B Mr. Eddy's sleeping-room ; 
 C his bed ; D the door where he was seen ; E fire-place. 
 
 From the room A he could be seen by the family lying in 
 his bea^ an d yet, there, he or his second self stood at the 
 hall-door ! Mrs. Eddy called to him and he answered 
 from his bed, scolding them for disturbing him. The 
 silent figure was then nothing less than his " double " or 
 wraith. 
 
 The son James died of diphtheria in 1862 in the north 
 room (marked F on the diagram). A week before the 
 event he asked his mother who the lady was who came 
 every day on the white horse to visit him. She thought 
 his mind wandered, and set to pacifying him, saying that 
 there was no lady nor any white horse, and he must not 
 disturb his mind with such fancies. He insisted that 
 there was a lady, and that she rode up every day at a 
 certain hour, tied her horse to the hitching-post and came 
 and sat in his room, waiting, as she said, for him to come 
 with her. The mother then said it must be a spirit, but 
 
RECORD OF OTHER PHANTOMS. 93 
 
 he declared that it was no spirit, but a living person. At 
 this very time Dr. Ross, of Rutland, the attendant phy- 
 sician, prophesied his recovery, but the mother recognized 
 the phantom rider as a warning, and her fears were 
 justified a few days later. The night he died he appeared 
 to his brother William, then a lad working in the dairy 
 on Warren Leland's farm in Westchester County, N. Y., 
 and who started for home before the next dawn. He 
 reached the door of his home weeping bitterly, and 
 anticipated the evil tidings by saying he knew all about 
 it and had come home to the funeral. 
 
 How vividly this incident recalls the case of the two 
 illustrious friends, Michael Mercatus and Marcellinus 
 Ficinus, as related by Baronius : 
 
 After a long discourse upon the immortality of the soul, they 
 mutually pledged their word that whoever should die first would 
 appear to the survivor. Shortly after, Mercatus being one morning 
 deeply engaged in study, heard the noise of a horse galloping in the 
 street, which presently stopped at his door, and the voice of Ficinus 
 called to him, "Oh, Michael ! oh, Michael ! vera sunt ilia — those 
 things are true ! " Rushing to the window and flinging open the 
 casement, he plainly saw his friend on a white steed. He called 
 after him, but without another word he galloped out of sight. 
 Thereupon he sent immediately to Florence to inquire concerning 
 his friend's health, and learned that he died about that hour he 
 called to him. 
 
 Mrs. Crowe tells of an Edinburgh citizen who, 
 riding gently up Corstcrphine hill one day, observed 
 an intimate friend of his own, on horseback also, 
 immediately behind him. He slackened his pace to 
 give him time to come up, but presently was amazed 
 to find no one in sight, although there was no side 
 road by which his friend could have departed. Per- 
 plexed in mind at the strange circumstance, he returned 
 
94 STOR Y OF MIRANDA EDD VS DEA TH. 
 
 home to find that during his absence his friend had 
 been killed by his horse falling in Candlemaker's 
 Row. 
 
 Again, a Yorkshire farmer's wife, away from home, 
 was suddenly seen to ride into the farm yard on horse- 
 back and then disappear, and she was afterward found 
 to have died at that precise time. 
 
 One day, before Miranda Eddy's death, the family 
 were sitting at dinner, when suddenly a heavy bell 
 tolled one, in the air, right over their heads, and the 
 reverberations of the peal died away while they listened 
 for the stroke to be repeated. Miranda saw James and 
 Francis in the spirit and gave orders for her own tomb- 
 stone. She ordered the inscription — "Not dead but 
 risen. Why seek ye the living among the dead ? " — 
 to be placed upon it. The survivors declare that she 
 was the greatest medium in the whole family. An old 
 woman of the neighborhood, who has the same passion 
 for laying out corpses that a famous New York thief, 
 nicknamed " The Chief Mourner/' had for attending 
 funerals, was counting upon the pleasant job Miranda 
 was soon to furnish her, but the dying girl said the 
 miserable creature should never close her eyes. She 
 made her mother promise that no one but she should 
 touch her body, and then calmly awaited the end. As 
 the ebb of life interfered with her breathing, Mrs. 
 Stephen Baird, a friendly neighbor, supported her in 
 her arms. The last minute arrived, the wrist was 
 pulseless, and the last gasp was being taken, when the 
 dead right arm raised itself, and the dead hand dosed the 
 glazed eyes. Here is Mrs. Baird's own certificate: 
 
DEA Til OF FRANCIS LIGIITFOOT EDD Y. 95 
 
 Chittenden, October 5th, 1874.— I certify that I was present on the 
 occasion of Miranda Eddy's death ; that I held her up at the last 
 moment ; and that, just at her last gasp, her arm rose and her 
 right hand closed her eyes." Mary Baird. 
 
 Miranda wrote her own obituary verses, which, at 
 
 the family's request, I quote : 
 
 " There's a silence in parlor and chamber, 
 
 There's a sadness in every room ; 
 Tho' we know 't was the Father who claimed her, v 
 
 Yet everything 's burdened with gloom. 
 But we will not be comfortless mourners, 
 For we know where the angels have borne her, 
 And soon we shall see her again." 
 
 Francis Lightfoot Eddy was Orderly Sergeant of 
 Company G, 5th Vermont Volunteers, in the late war. 
 He contracted a heavy cold in the army that soon ran 
 into quick consumption, and the poor fellow came 
 home to die. He lay sick three months, but three days 
 before the end approached, he wrote in the family 
 Bible, the exact day and hour of his death. A fort- 
 night previous to this, the family heard a wagon drive 
 up to the front door, one evening, the latch lifted and 
 the button turned, and they saw two soldiers bring in 
 a coffin and place it in the entry, and then retire and 
 drive off without saying a word. On the coffin was 
 a plate with a name upon it, which not being able 
 to read in the obscurity, they went for a candle ; but 
 upon its being brought, the coffin had vanished like 
 its mysterious bearers. When Francis died they sent 
 to Rutland by a neighbor for his coffin, and when that 
 was brought, it was the counterpart of its spectral 
 double, to the very plate and nails. 
 
 Francis also dictated the style of his tombstone and 
 wished it to bear the inscription, " passed into the 
 
CjG A CHILD 'S DEA TH A VER TED. 
 
 world of spirits," instead of the usual formula, " died." 
 He also wanted a flag carved on the stone, surmounted by 
 the legend; " Freedom at last." But old Mr. Eddy was 
 bound to have his own way in this as in everything else, 
 and set up a stone to suit himself. This enraged the 
 boy's spirit so much that he came back in materialized 
 and unmaterialized form, and annoyed them until they 
 replaced the obnoxious marble with one according with 
 his dying request. 
 
 In the spring of 1863 the child of Sophia Eddy, wife ot 
 Sylvester Chase, of Bennington, Vt., lay sick at the old 
 Eddy homestead, of lung fever. Her death was expected 
 by all, and Delia ironed a white dress and skirt for the 
 little girl and laid them away in the mother's trunk. One 
 evening Horatio went out to the penstock for water, and, 
 looking up, he saw his own room in the second story 
 lighted up and two strange old women walking about, 
 shaking the invalid's dresses and busying themselves in' 
 other preparations, apparently for the coming death. He 
 ran up-stairs, and, opening his door, found a table set in 
 the middle of the floor, covered with a sheet taken from 
 the bed and on it the child' s clothes, which had been 
 removed from the trunk in another room. The smoking 
 wicks of two candles showed the source of the light he 
 had observed. Knowing by experience what this sort of 
 thing meant, he came down and told the watchers that 
 the child would die, The mother at once fell into a 
 violent convulsion, which ended in a dead faint. Mean- 
 while Horatio had gone to the door and stood watching 
 the re-lighting of the candles and the moving about of the 
 ghostly women, when, just as Mrs. Chase had fainted, the 
 
CORROBORATIVE TESTIMONY. 97 
 
 light was extinguished, there was a rush of invisible feet 
 
 down the stairs and into the chamber, and the child soon 
 
 began to mend in the arms of William, who tended the 
 
 little one with affectionate care. They were afterwards 
 
 told that it was fully expected that she would die, and 
 
 spirit friends had gathered there to receive her, but the 
 
 mother's alarming condition induced them to unite their 
 
 efforts to keep alive the flickering spark of life. 
 
 Now, please bear in mind that all these portents have 
 
 had their prototypes in various countries at various times. 
 
 The books are full of them, and unless we choose to reject 
 
 corroborative testimony of a character and to a degree 
 
 that would substantiate any other facts in any court of 
 
 justice, we have no right to whistle these psychological 
 
 phenomena down the wind. If they have occurred more 
 
 frequently than might be wished in the presence of 
 
 illiterate and plain people who were incapacitated to 
 
 observe and study them to the best advantage, it is only 
 
 the louder call upon men of science to take up the inquiry 
 
 and set our minds at rest. Says Mr. Crookes in the 
 
 Quarterly Journal of Science for July, 1871 : 
 
 " It argues ill for the boasted freedom of opinion among scientific 
 men, that they have so long refused to institute a scientific investiga- 
 tion into the existence and nature of facts asserted by so many com- 
 petent and credible witnesses, and which they are freely invited to 
 examine when and where they please. For my own part I too much 
 value the pursuit of truth, and the discovery of any new fact in 
 nature, to avoid inquiry because it appears to clash with prevailing 
 opinions." 
 
 These are noble words, and worthy of consideration 
 
 by every scientist who would not be considered an 
 
 obstructionist in this time of progress. He adds in the 
 
 same article: 
 
98 APA THY OF SCIENTIFIC MEN. 
 
 " I confess I am surprised and pained at the timidity or apathy 
 shown by scientific men in reference to this subject. Some little 
 time ago, when an opportunity for examination was first presented 
 to me, I invited the co-operation of some scientific friends in a sys- 
 tematic investigation ; but I soon found that to obtain a scientific 
 committee for the investigation of this class of facts was out of the 
 question, and that I must be content to rely on my own endeavors, 
 aided by the co-operation from time to time of a few scientific and 
 learned friends who were willing to join in the inquiry." 
 
 When Mr. Crookes announced in 1870 his intention 
 to take up this new branch of scientific inquiry, his 
 determination was applauded by the most influential 
 journals in Europe. " Now," they said, " we shall have 
 the facts, for now a truly great student of nature is set 
 about finding it all out." But when he found it out 
 and announced, like the honest and brave man he is, 
 that his researches warranted the belief that spiritual 
 intercourse was a demonstrable truth, he was abused 
 and vilified to such a degree as to make it apparent 
 that what he was expected to discover was something that 
 would not run counter to popular prejudice. 
 
 I have said that the Eddy portents have their proto- 
 types. The frequency of this class of phenomena, led 
 the German psychologists to adopt the doctrine of guar- 
 dian spirits — " a doctrine," says Mrs. Crowe, " which 
 has prevailed more or less in all ages, and has been con- 
 sidered by many theologians to be supported by the 
 Bible." 
 
 The literal accuracy of the sketch of " The Phantom 
 Carriage " has been endorsed on three separate occa- 
 sions since its appearance in the Daily Graphic, by what 
 claimed to be spirits, who addressed me in audible 
 voice — one of the three Mrs. Eddy herself— and all 
 
GUARDIAN ANGELS. 99 
 
 three assert that the apparition was sent by a guardian 
 spirit. I know the full value of words, and I mean to 
 say unequivocally that a woman — a breathing, walk- 
 ing, palpable woman, as palpable as any other woman 
 in the room, recognized not only by her sons and 
 daughters, but also by neighbors present, as Mrs. Zeph- 
 aniah Eddy, deceased December 29th, 1872 — on the even- 
 ing of October 2d, 1874, walked out of a cabinet where 
 there was only one mortal, and where, under ascer- 
 tained circumstances, only this one man could have 
 been at the time, and spoke to me personally in audible 
 voice. And nineteen other persons saw her at the 
 same time, and heard her discourse. 
 
 The records teem with instances of warnings being 
 conveyed by supernatural agency, to persons in temporary 
 danger, as well as to those about to die. Among the most 
 interesting is that of the white-robed child Immanuel, 
 who attended Frau Jung Stilling from 1799 to her death. 
 He would forewarn her of dangers, attended her when 
 travelling, and hovered near at all times and seasons. He 
 addressed her in a language of his own, which, though 
 unintelligible to others, she somehow understood. When 
 she asked the spirit to show himself to her husband he 
 refused, alleging that to do so would make him ill and 
 cause his death. " Few persons," he explained, " are able 
 to see such things." 
 
 After the death of Dante, it was discovered that the 
 thirteenth canto of the " Paradiso " was missing, and all 
 search for it proved unavailing. But after some months 
 the dead poet appeared to his son Pietro Alighieri, and 
 told him that if he removed a certain panel near the 
 
IOO THE GHOST OF DANTE. 
 
 \ 
 window of the room in which the poem was written, the 
 
 missing canto would be found. And it was found, much 
 
 mildewed, but legible. 
 
 The story I told of Horatio Eddy's finding his grand- 
 mother's snuff-box and gold necklace, has its counterpart 
 in the case of Madame von Militz (related by Mrs. Crowe), 
 who, being about to sell her ancestral home, was instructed 
 by a voice to go to the cellar and open a certain part of 
 the wall. She did so, and found a goblet in which was a 
 small gold ring, on which was engraven the name Anna 
 von Militz. 
 
 A Scotch gentleman, Avho was passing the night in the 
 Manse of Strachur, Argyleshire, was visited during the 
 night by an apparition, which said : " I come to tell you 
 that this day twelvemonth you will be with your father." 
 By a most curious concatenation of circumstances, he lost 
 his life at the very time indicated, in a storm. 
 
 I have mentioned the appearance of James Eddy to his 
 brother William at the moment of his death, and if I had 
 space, could cite twenty similar cases from familiar 
 authors. One will suffice for the present. Lord Bal- 
 carres was confined in the castle of Edinburgh on a 
 charge of Jacobitism, and one night, saw his friend Vis- 
 count Dundee open the curtains of his bed and look in 
 upon him ; and then walk to the mantel-piece, lean upon 
 it a moment, and go out of the room. At the same hour, 
 as it subsequently appeared, the Viscount had died. 
 
 When it is known that William Eddy never had a 
 month's schooling in his life, and that he is almost illiter- 
 ate, it will readily be imagined that he never even heard 
 of Lord Balcarres. 
 
THE SPINNING GHOST. 
 
 IOI 
 
 The curious weapon of which 
 the artist has furnished a sketch 
 was dug out of the ground, 
 from a depth of four feet below 
 the surface, by Horatio Eddy, 
 near Batavia, N. Y., where he 
 happened to be exhibiting, 
 some years ago. His informa- 
 tion as to its locality, was 
 obtained, he says, from a spirit. 
 The shape of the weapon, and 
 the quaint ornamentation of 
 the bronze handle, will interest 
 the antiquary. 
 
 The sketch of the Spinning 
 Ghost tells the story of a curi- 
 ous family experience, attested 
 to me by every member of the 
 Eddy connection that I have 
 seen. After old Mrs. Macomb's 
 death, she was for years in the 
 habit of returning to the north 
 room on the second floor and 
 turning her spinning-wheel. 
 Four of the boys slept there, 
 and the wheel stood in the 
 south-east corner, behind the 
 door. The children were great- 
 ly frightened at first to hear 
 the buzz and see no one, but 
 they soon grew familiar with 
 4* 
 
 -fei 
 
 t'' 
 
 k 
 
102 SUBSTANTIAL APPEARANCE OF GHOSTS. 
 
 the thing, and finally, to be sure that grandmother would 
 awaken them, they hung a little bell on the wheel. 
 The phenomenon, which had frightened them at first so 
 that they hid their little faces beneath the bed-covering, 
 had become a nightly diversion. After awhile the spirit 
 materialized herself, feebly at first but stronger by 
 degrees, until she would come looking exactly as when 
 alive. The sketch represents the scene with absolute 
 accuracy, and it is worth while to call attention to the 
 fact that, except for the title, no one would suspect that 
 the woman was not of this world. It was intended that 
 it should be just so, for I can assure the reader, that, so 
 far from the materialized spirits who appear in the Eddy 
 "circle-room" seeming ghostlike, they are as substantial 
 in every respect as any of us who gaze at the weird 
 phalanx of the dead-alive. 
 
L 
 
 \ 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A CHAPTER OF FEET AND INCHES. 
 
 I ASSUME it to be a fundamental principle that, in 
 making scientific researches, results must be self- 
 sufficient ; requiring neither excuse nor charity of 
 construction, but carrying conviction in themselves. To 
 deserve admission into the field of science, they must, 
 be arrived at under circumstances that absolutely exclude 
 the chance of error. They must, moreover, be capable 
 of re-production at any time, under exactly the same 
 circumstances, by any capable scientist, in any part 
 of the world. I admit, also, that in view of the 
 multitudinous liabilities to self-deception by trusting 
 to the senses, their evidence should be largely excluded. 
 To think I see a body rise in opposition to the law of 
 gravity, as now understood, is to the student of science 
 no evidence that I did see the phenomenon. He says 
 that it is more reasonable to believe my eyesight at fault, 
 or that, if I did see the body rise, trickery was involved, 
 than that the universal law of gravity was disturbed in 
 this particular instance. But if the lifting of the weight 
 can be indicated on an instrument, which having neither 
 
 i°5 
 
106 THE A UTHOR 'S POSITION. 
 
 eyes nor psychological idiosyncrasies, cannot be deceived, 
 then a new fact is gained for science, and our whole 
 domain of knowledge has to be re-measured. 
 
 Applying these rules to my own case, in what attitude 
 do I stand towards the scientific world? The answer 
 is readily given. The collector of a few facts and observer 
 of certain phenomena, which others must classify and 
 analyze : the gatherer of a few of the pebbles on the 
 strand ; gazing over the whole ocean that lies there, 
 inviting the keel of the bold and skillful navigator ; but 
 which I cannot explore. As William Morton the com- 
 mon sailor, pushing ahead of his companions, looked out 
 upon the Open Polar Sea that had been the dream of 
 geographical science for ages, and, humble as he was, 
 pointed the way for all future Arctic explorers, so, I 
 trust, that in reporting what is to be seen at the Vermont 
 House of Wonders, this outpost upon the borders of the 
 world known, and gateway of the world unknown, I may 
 at least lighten the labors of those more learned and 
 scientific than I, who are to come this way with the clew 
 of the labyrinth in their hands. 
 
 If I am so fortunate as to observe any one thing so 
 carefully that it commands the thoughtful attention of 
 one trained investigator, and so ultimately leads to the 
 discovery of an occult force, I should be most thankful ; 
 while if I should discover, or assist others to prove the 
 Eddy marvels to be nothing but chicane, the public will 
 be the gainer and I shall deserve well of it. 
 
 I am led to make these remarks, by various criticisms 
 and suggestions received by me from sources worthy of 
 respect. It is proper that I should define my position 
 
INFALLIBLE INVESTIGATORS. 107 
 
 beyond mistake, and declare that, if I misrepresent what 
 I see, hear, and feel, it will be through lack of trained pow- 
 ers of observation, and the consequent deception of my 
 senses, and no other cause. Of course there is danger of 
 this very thing, for I am not capable of doing the work 
 of the man of science, any more than that of the dentist 
 or cabinet-maker. But perhaps I am as competent as 
 the average of laymen, and so we will let it pass at that. 
 There were one or two pseudo-investigators at the 
 Eddys' during my visit, skipping in for a day or so, and 
 skipping off again, ready to avow that all of William's 
 " materialized spirits " were William in disguise, and all 
 of Horatio's surprising manifestations, the easy tricks of a 
 travelling conjuror. If one tells them of babies being 
 carried in from the cabinet by women ; of young girls 
 with lithe forms, yellow hair, and short stature ; of old 
 women and men standing in full sight and speaking to 
 us ; of half-grown children seen, two at a time, simulta- 
 neously with another form ; of costumes of different 
 makes ; of bald heads, gray hair, black, shocky heads of 
 hair, curly hair ; of ghosts instantly recognized by friends 
 and ghosts speaking audibly in a foreign language of 
 which the medium is ignorant — their equanimity is not 
 disturbed for an instant. One sound and sufficient rule 
 is applied : exclude everything troublesome, and explain 
 away the rest as fraud. Let the world wag as it will, 
 they are omniscient and infallible ; and, with Sir Oracle, 
 say : 
 
 "When I ope my mouth, let no dog bark." 
 
 The credulity of some scientific men, too, is bound- 
 less — they would rather believe that a baby could lift a 
 
108 SCIENTIFIC SKEPTICISM. 
 
 mountain without levers, than that a spirit could lift an 
 ounce. Alfred Wallace, of London, told a friend of 
 mine that if a new fact were presented to Tyndall he 
 would smell it, look at it, taste it, turn it over, handle 
 it, bite it, — and then wouldn't believe. This is an 
 extreme illustration of scientific skepticism, but after 
 all it fairly illustrates the habit which, properly mod- 
 erated, protects the world from false teaching. At the 
 same time it must be admitted, that this spirit clogs the 
 wheels of Progress, and obliges discoverers to win their 
 just renown at the price of suffering and persecution. 
 The other day a visitor at the Eddys' offered to bet me 
 $1,000 to $>ioo that he could personate every one of the 
 ghosts he saw that night, with a few dollars' worth of 
 stage properties, and do every " trick " of Horatio's 
 light circle after a day's preparation. All I could say 
 was, that in such case he need not hunt for gold mines, 
 for he had one in his head and fingers. 
 
 The phenomena publicly exhibited at the Eddy home- 
 stead are of the following character : i. The so-called 
 materialization of spirit-forms, which occur in a " cir- 
 cle-room " in the second story of the L part of the 
 house. 2. The showing of materialized hands ; the 
 "ring test ;" writing of names of deceased persons upon 
 cards, by detached hands ; and playing on instruments 
 in the light ; which usually happen in a circle held at 
 the conclusion of the materialization circle. 3. The 
 playing of musical instruments; voices; the sound of 
 heavy dancing ; the moving of ponderous bodies ; the 
 floating of musical instruments through the air ; the 
 noise of struggles and sword combats between two 
 
MA TERIALIZA TION OF SPIRIT-FORMS. 1 1 1 
 
 combatants ; the flashing of phosphorescent lights ; 
 the touching and patting of our persons by supposed 
 spirit-hands ; a concert of musical instruments, numer- 
 ous enough to require the aid of at least four perform- 
 ers ; solo-playing on the harmonicon, accordeon, violin, 
 flute, guitar, or concertina ; the improvisation of rhymes 
 by a voice, upon a subject named by any person present ; 
 whistling; the imitation of a storm at sea, with the 
 whistling and roaring of the gale, the force of waves, 
 the sucking pumps, &c, &c. — these in a totally darkened 
 room. All these forms of manifestation I have seen, 
 heard, or felt, and each many times. 
 
 My first problem was whether the manifestations 
 were produced with the help of confederates, and I will 
 state the physical conditions surrounding the perform- 
 ers. The room is, as I observed, in a new extension, 
 or L. Its windows are 13 feet 9 inches from the 
 ground. No ladder is owned on the premises. For 
 the use of carpenters engaged in making some small 
 repairs, one was borrowed in the neighborhood. There 
 is but one door of entrance, and this at the end of the 
 room next to the main part of the house. The room 
 is 37 feet 6 inches long and 17 feet wide, with a ceiling 
 9 feet 2 inches high in the centre, and 6 feet 1 1 inches 
 at the sides. At the farther or west end is the kitchen 
 chimney, 2 feet 7 inches by 3 feet 4 inches, in the centre 
 of the gable. To the right of the chimney is a closet 
 of the same depth — 2 feet 7 inches — and a length of 
 7 feet, with a window in it, 2 feet 6 inches from the 
 floor, and having a 2 feet 2 inch by 2 feet 3 inch open- 
 ing. The door to the closet or " cabinet " (for this is 
 
112 SEALING THE WINDOW. 
 
 where the medium, William H. Eddy, sits) is 5 feet 
 9 7-8 inches high by 2 feet wide. The ceiling of the 
 cabinet at the chimney end is 7 feet 2 inches, and 5 feet 
 at the other end, where the roof slopes. Three sides 
 of the closet are lath and plaster ; the fourth the solid 
 brick wall of the chimney. There are no panels to 
 slide, no loose boards in the floor to lift. Every inch 
 is tight and solid. Outside the cabinet a platform as 
 long as the width of the room, and 6 feet 7 inches wide 
 in its widest part, is elevated 23 1-4 inches above the 
 general floor level. Along its outer edge runs a balus- 
 trade or handrail, 2 feet 6 inches high, making the height 
 from the floor of the room to the top of the rail, 4 feet 
 5 1-4 inches. The outside measurements of the L, cor- 
 respond with those of the circle-room. 
 
 For six months after the hall was built, there was no 
 window in the cabinet, but one evening during the 
 excessively hot weather of last July, the medium 
 fainted upon coming out of the stifling place, and the 
 window was cut through. 
 
 This window, in consequence of insinuations of its 
 possible use for the introduction of costumes and con- 
 federates, I obtained permission to effectually seal up, 
 which I did by tacking a fine mosquito netting over 
 the frame outside, and sealing it with wax stamped with 
 my signet. 
 
 This precaution made no difference in what occurred 
 inside. I examined the netting every day until I left 
 the place, about three weeks afterward, and found it 
 just as I left it, with the exception that one night a vio- 
 lent gale and rain-storm made a slight rent, which I 
 
INSIDE OF CABINET. 
 
THE CIRCLE-ROOM. 115 
 
 immediately repaired. Before this covering was put 
 on, the window was watched from the outside, during 
 a seance, and no confederacy was discovered. 
 
 The audience occupy the two benches and the chairs 
 shown on the diagram. The circles being held by 
 night, such feeble illumination as there is, comes from 
 a kerosene lamp placed at the south side of the room, 
 at the point indicated in the ground plan. My own 
 post of observation is also shown. 
 
 It will be remembered that beneath the circle-room 
 are the dining-room, a small kitchen, and smaller 
 buttery, all of which were illustrated in Chapter II. 
 The ceilings of the rooms beneath, are the old lathed 
 and plastered ceilings that have been there for many 
 years. The new story was only added last spring, 
 before which time the circles were held in a large sit- 
 ting or reception room in the main house. The new 
 circle-room floor is supported on beams of 6 by 4 inch 
 stuff running across the L, and comprises two layers 
 of boards; one rough, laid with open joints, and the 
 upper one of planed, but not tongued and grooved, 
 lumber. This is the common fashion in this section of 
 the country, as I ascertained by examining a new 
 house in course of completion a short distance from 
 the Eddy homestead, There is no floor below the plat- 
 form floor, but the outer edge of the platform rests upon 
 a stout timber, and its floor, laid like the rest in two 
 layers, is nailed to transverse ribs framed into the cross- 
 timber and the outside plate. By going with a candle 
 into the two little dark pantries opening out from the 
 kitchen and buttery respectively, the whole carpentery 
 
1 1 6 THORO UGH EXAM IN A TIONS. 
 
 of the platform and cabinet can be easily seen. One 
 of the cuts gives a sectional view of the same. 
 
 I have made two careful examinations of this matter 
 — once with the artist, and once with a Massachusetts 
 inventor, who was good enough to give me the follow- 
 ing certificate : 
 
 Chittenden, Vt., September 26th, 1874. — The undersigned, an 
 inventor of many years' experience, a mechanician, and the grantee 
 of twenty-three patents by the United States Government, hereby 
 certifies that, at the request of and in company with Mr. H. S. 
 Olcott, he has thoroughly examined the walls, window, ceiling and 
 floor of William H. Eddy's " cabinet," and the floor of the platform 
 upon which it opens, and that there is no possible means by which 
 confederates could be introduced into the said cabinet, except 
 through the open door, in full face of the audience ; nor any place 
 where costumes or apparatus could be stowed. Furthermore, that 
 after witnessing numerous materializations by alleged spirits, he is 
 perfectly satisfied that the phenomena, whatever maybe their origin, 
 are not produced by jugglery, the personation of characters by Wm. 
 H. Eddy, or chemical or mechanical device. As to their being 
 spiritual appearances, he has not become perfectly satisfied, for his 
 previously entertained opinions as to a future state, have not been 
 of a nature to allow him to concede the possibility of visits by the 
 inhabitants of another world to this. 
 
 O. F. Morrill, Chelsea, Mass. 
 
 A glance at the ground plan of the circle-room will 
 show that, not only can no one get to the medium, after 
 he goes into the cabinet, by entering the door of the cir- 
 cle-room, without detection, but no one can leave the 
 circle to assist. The light, although very dim, is still 
 quite sufficient to make the movements of every person 
 in the room visible. 
 
 Stress has been laid upon the fact that members of 
 the Eddy family, sit with the spectators and usually in 
 the front row. But, in the first place, there are times 
 when neither of the family, except William, is in the 
 
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 GfiOOA/0 PIAA/ 0/r T HE C/RCLE ftOOM . 
 
 VIEW AND PLAN OF CABINET. 
 
THE BA TTLE-GKO UND. 1 1 9 
 
 room ; secondly, they as often sit behind the last bench 
 as on the front one ; and in the third place, it makes no 
 difference where they sit, for no one could move a foot 
 away from his place without being seen by every one 
 else in the room. 
 
 Over the circle-room there is nothing but an unfloored 
 cock-loft, in which a man cannot stand upright. 
 Between the braces, the lathing and plaster of the ceil- 
 ing of the room below are exposed to view, and there 
 is no sign of trap or opening. Moreover, when I 
 examined the place, the old cobwebs stretched from 
 rafter to rafter, showed that no one had preceded me 
 that way, for a long time at least. 
 
 I now claim that I have demonstrated the inaccessi- 
 bility of the cabinet to evil-disposed persons, and so 
 eliminated one most important source of deception. 
 The question is therefore narrowed down to the fol- 
 lowing point : Granted that certain forms, apparently 
 differing in sizes, colors, costumes, sex, and age, pre- 
 sent themselves on the platform, they must be either, (1) 
 deceptive personations by one man, or (2) the mani- 
 festations of an occult force. There is no escape from 
 the syllogism. The battle must be fought out at that 
 cabinet door. I realized this the first day I came ; I 
 realize it tenfold now. The weeks I spent there, were 
 weeks of as hard mental labor as I ever gave to any 
 subject in my whole life. I passed through every 
 degree of incredulity and distrust. I was ever on the 
 watch lest I might miss some new circumstance calcu- 
 lated to overturn my formed opinion, and ever ready 
 to confess myself a dupe of impostors if the fact could 
 
120 LIABILITY TO BE DECEIVED. 
 
 be demonstrated to me. But I finally reached the 
 same point with Mr. Morrill — that whatever might be 
 thought of the cause of the phenomena, they were not 
 due to charlatanry or prestidigitation. And yet better 
 men than I have been deceived before, and how am I 
 better entitled than they to the public confidence, for the 
 stories I tell ? Why should I expect sober-minded men 
 and women to believe there is no fraud in all this, 
 until they have the same opportunities as myself to see 
 all and ponder on all ? And how, especially, can I ask 
 men of exact science, trained to accept nothing, abso- 
 lutely nothing, without full and complete demonstra- 
 tion — mathematical demonstration? I do not; and, 
 therefore, my office is to first tell my tale as clearly, 
 succinctly, candidly as lies within my power, and let it 
 carry conviction as far as it will, in its perfect integrity 
 of statement. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MATERIALIZATION. 
 
 UNQUESTIONABLY my first chapter about the 
 materialization of spirit-forms at Chittenden, 
 should be prefaced by some notice of the chro- 
 nology of this phase of manifestation. But with the 
 meagre facilities at my command when the major part of 
 this work was written, I can only glance at the subject. 
 A sparsely settled rural district, far removed from libraries, 
 is a bad place for the collection of historical data, so I 
 must mainly rely upon my memory of many books read 
 in the course of many years. 
 
 If I were to refer to ancient times, I might easily cite a 
 host of instances of the alleged re-appearance of materi- 
 alized spirits upon the scene of their pre-mortem activity. 
 I have already alluded in former chapters to a few of the 
 authors in whose writings the diligent student may satisfy 
 his curiosity upon the subject. It suffices to repeat that 
 the sacred writings of most nations, the classics, and the 
 architectural remains of primitive races, afford proofs that 
 the congenital aspirations of the human family for immor- 
 tal existence, have not gone hungry for lack of sustenance. 
 
 121 
 
122 PROTOPLASMS vs. THE SOUL. 
 
 Our modern materialists may reason themselves into a 
 comfortable reliance upon protoplasms and final mole- 
 cules, and glibly set aside the claims of their opponents 
 by endowing pure matter with the promise and potency 
 of every form and quality of life ; but, after all, as the 
 London Times truly says : 
 
 " Theology is apparently slain only to revive. Professor Tyndall 
 does not solve, and it is obvious that his method cannot enable him 
 to solve, the riddle of the universe. There is, too, another difficulty 
 which he is the first to confess. His analysis of the world's histoiy 
 leaves out one-half of man, and he finds it impossible to deny to this 
 other side of man's nature a reality as absolute as that which he 
 claims for his physical faculties and for his understanding. The 
 strain of reason and the emotions of his spiritual nature will not 
 rest unrecognized, and when the end of the professor's address is 
 reached, we echo his own thought if we say, ' There are more things 
 in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in his philosophy.' " 
 
 I venture to say, that of those who have given any serious 
 thought to the subject, fifty persons would prefer to have 
 my researches end in indubitable proof that the mani- 
 festations are genuine, to one who would like to have me 
 discover fraud beneath the surface. Says Guizot, in his 
 " Meditations upon the Religious Questions of the Day " : 
 " Belief in the supernatural is a fact natural, primitive, 
 universal, and constant in the life and history of the 
 human race. Unbelief in the supernatural begets mate- 
 rialism, materialism sensuality, sensuality social convul- 
 sions, amid whose storms man again learns to believe and 
 pray." 
 
 The great address of Tyndall at Belfast opened with 
 the following majestic prelude: 
 
 " An impulse inherent in primeval man turned his thoughts and 
 questionings betimes toward the sources of natural phenomena. 
 The same impulse, inherited and intensified, is the spur of scientific 
 action to-day. Determined by it, by a process of abstraction from 
 
PROF. TYND ALL'S ADDRESS. 123 
 
 experience, we form physical theories which lie beyond the pale of 
 experience, but which satisfy the desire of the mind to see every 
 natural occurrence resting upon a cause. In forming their notions 
 of the origin of things, our earliest historic (and, doubtless, we might 
 add, our pre-historic) ancestors pursued, as far as their intelligence 
 permitted, the same course. They also fell back upon experience, 
 but with this difference — that the particular experiences which 
 furnished the weft and woof of their theories, were drawn, not from 
 the study of nature, but from what lay much closer to them, the 
 observation of men. Their theories accordingly took an anthropo- 
 morphic form. To supersensual beings, which, ' however potent and 
 invisible, were nothing but species of human creatures, perhaps 
 raised from among mankind, and retaining all human passions and 
 appetites,' were handed over the rule and governance of natural 
 phenomena. Tested by observation and reflection, these early 
 notions failed in the long run to satisfy the more penetrating intel- 
 lects of our race. Far in the depths of history we find men of 
 exceptional power differentiating themselves from the crowd, reject- 
 ing these anthropomorphic notions, and seeking to connect natural 
 phenomena with their physical principles. 
 
 " But long prior to these purer efforts of the understanding the 
 merchant had been abroad, and rendered the philosopher possible ; 
 commerce had been developed, wealth amassed, leisure for travel and 
 for speculation secured, while races educated under different con- 
 ditions, and therefore differently informed and endowed, had been 
 stimulated and sharpened by mutual contact. In those regions 
 where the commercial aristocracy of ancient Greece mingled with 
 its Eastern neighbors, the sciences were born, being nurtured and 
 developed by free-thinking and courageous men. The state of 
 things to be displaced, may be gathered from a passage of Euripides 
 quoted by Hume. 'There is nothing in the world; no glory, no 
 prosperity. The gods toss all into confusion, mix everything with 
 its reverse, that all of us, from our ignorance and uncertainty, may 
 pay them the more worship and reverence.' Now, as science 
 demands the radical extirpation of caprice and the absolute reliance 
 upon law in nature, there grew with the growth of scientific notions, 
 a desire and determination to sweep from the field of theory this 
 mob of gods and demons, and to place natural phenomena on a basis 
 more congruent with themselves. The problem which had been 
 previously approached from above, was now attacked from below ; 
 theoretic effort passed from the super to the sub-sensible. It was 
 felt that to construct the universe in idea, it was necessary to have 
 some notion of its constituent parts — of what Lucretius subsequently 
 called the ' First Beginnings.' Abstracting again from experience, 
 
124 UNDISCOVERED FORMS OF MATTER. 
 
 the leaders of scientific speculation reached at length the pregnant 
 doctrine of atoms and molecules, the latest developments of which 
 were set forth with such power and clearness at the last meeting 
 of the British Association." 
 
 But, if I may humbly criticize one of so lofty an intel- 
 lect, it appears to me that the course of scientific inquiry 
 has led our modern philosophers too far towards the 
 opposite extreme from that of Euripides. To disabuse 
 the world of the notion that the powers of nature are not 
 subject to the domination of gods and demons, which 
 was a common belief so late as the XVIIth Century, and 
 upon which the persecutions for witchcraft were based, it 
 is not necessary to deny the existence of these invisible 
 beings to Avhom the ancients applied the terms quoted, 
 but whom we classify as developed and undeveloped 
 spirits. 
 
 To prove the potentiality of the ultimate of matter, it 
 is not necessary that we should ignore the existence of 
 spirit. To demonstrate the organic and inorganic con- 
 stituents of the human body, does not involve the denial 
 of the existence of the soul. If Tyndall and his associates 
 would but once admit that there may be forms of matter 
 and essences so subtle as to escape the test of their 
 crucibles and scales, they would be at a point whence a 
 whole new universe of research would open before them, 
 inviting them to reach out for richer rewards of fame than 
 ever before repaid the study and labor of philosopher or 
 chemist. 
 
 In looking back to the early days of American 
 history, I cannot now recall any stories of " materializa- 
 tion " prior to the close of the seventeenth century, when 
 the storm of fanaticism arose that cost many worthy 
 
SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 125 
 
 people their lives on the charge of witchcraft. In Mr. 
 Upham's " History of Salem Witchcraft " will be found 
 many instances of persons being taken hold of by visible 
 supernatural forms, of persons being sat upon by spectres 
 while lying in their beds, of animals suddenly entering 
 rooms in a mysterious manner and as suddenly disap- 
 pearing, to say nothing of levitations (such as that of 
 Margaret Rule), rappings, the throwing about of heavy 
 articles, and the hearing of spirit-voices by many wit- 
 nesses. True, Mr. Upham ascribes the whole thing to 
 trickery, assuming that by practice (acquired in the course 
 of a single winter with the help of a half-breed Barbadoes 
 slave-woman !) a few ignorant girls had " become wonder- 
 ful adepts in the art of jugglery, and probably of ventril- 
 oquism ; " but does this explanation satisfy any really 
 candid inquirer ? Especially, does it satisfy any person 
 who, in the presence of our modern mediums, has seen 
 the same things repeated ? 
 
 It was the prevalent belief among the learned of all 
 professions, at the epoch in question, that the North 
 American Indians v had migrated hither, by way of 
 Behrings Straits, under a compact with the Devil to 
 transfer allegiance from God to him ; receiving in return 
 certain occult powers, by which they were enabled, not 
 only to injure their fellow men, but also exercise more or 
 less control over the elements. Witches were persons 
 who had entered into a secret treaty with the Evil One 
 through his allies, the Indians, and Cotton Mather, Sam. 
 Parris, and other theologians of influence in the infant 
 colony inculcated the doctrine that the execution of 
 
 these unfortunates would find favor in the sight of God, 
 5 
 
126 THE "ROCHESTER KNOCKINGS." 
 
 and proportionately distress and cripple the power of 
 the Arch Enemy of mankind. 
 
 The Salem witchcraft tragedies were followed by such 
 a reaction, that tardy justice was done to the families of 
 the victims of the popular frenzy, and nothing was said 
 about supernaturalism — at least nothing, I think, that 
 aroused general interest — until the present dispensation 
 was ushered in at the little cabin of Michael Weekman, 
 in 1847, where, in the family of John D. Fox, its then 
 lessee, there bubbled up the tiny spring that is now so 
 great a river. The raps and poundings which will always 
 be known as the " Rochester Knockings " and forever 
 perpetuate the memory of Kate and Margaret Fox, were 
 followed by many other and more wonderful forms of 
 manifestation, such as the lifting of heavy bodies, the 
 phenomenal increase and diminution of their normal 
 weight (the lightest articles acquiring marvellous ponder- 
 osity and the heaviest equally notable levity), the ringing 
 of bells, the playing by unseen performers on instruments, 
 and, finally, by the materialization of spirit-hands, faces, 
 and full forms. 
 
 At the same time, however, that these things were going 
 on and the attention of the civilized world was arrested 
 by them, similar phenomena were happening in other 
 private families. The Davenports, of Buffalo, N. Y., 
 were having some slight premonitions of the future career 
 ^ they were destined for, but the physical manifestations 
 did not occur in their presence until February, 1855. A 
 year before this the Koons family, of Athens County, 
 Ohio, had instrumental and vocal concerts by the spirits, 
 and materialized hands wrote communications. 
 
INDEPENDENT MA TERIALIZA TION. 1 2 7 
 
 But the Eddys tell me that they had been seeing 
 materialized spirit-forms from their childhood, and their 
 mother before them, and, in the absence of conflicting 
 evidence, I suppose that the credit will have to be 
 awarded to them of witnessing the first instances of this 
 highest form of physical manifestation, occurring in our 
 time. And yet, notwithstanding this fact, and the 
 additional one, that no family so gifted in these rare 
 psychological traits is to be found in history, their names 
 are not even mentioned in Epes Sargent's " Planchette," 
 one of the most scholarly works on Spiritualism in our 
 language. It should be remarked, however, in explana- 
 tion of this fact, that Mr. Sargent informs me that he 
 applied to the Eddys for permission to visit their home, 
 and was refused by Horatio ; who probably answered his 
 letter in haste, not recognizing the name as that of so able 
 an author and so enlightened a Spiritualist. 
 
 One evening, in March, 1872, the Eddy family were 
 sitting about the fire, when an event occurred that 
 ushered in the series of materializations that have cul- 
 minated in the public seances now given nightly. 
 William had cut his foot very badly with an axe, and 
 was confined to his bed in an adjoining room. Sud- 
 denly, without warning, the grandmother's spirit in full 
 materialized form appeared at the threshold, and gave 
 instruction for some salves to apply to the wound, and 
 a cooling draught to abate the fever that had set in; 
 after which she disappeared. Shortly after this, when 
 Delia Eddy was engaged in reducing some maple-sugar 
 over the kitchen fire, the spirit of a man of short 
 stature suddenly materialized himself, frightening her 
 
128 " WHITE SPIRITS AND GRA V." 
 
 so that she dropped a pan of sugar she was carrying. 
 The spirits then told the family that William was to 
 be developed as the greatest medium of the age, and 
 that he must no longer sit for the instrument-playing 
 exhibitions, as he had been doing for a number of 
 years, but must go into the cabinet or closet alone and 
 take no bells or instruments with him. 
 
 These instructions being obeyed, spirit-faces soon 
 began to appear, and finally Santum, the giant Winne- 
 bago chief, whom my readers will recollect my men- 
 tioning in connection with the seance at Honto's cave, 
 stalked out in full form. For a long while no other 
 spirit came, but finally they made their appearance. 
 "Electa," alight-complexioned squaw, about seventeen 
 years of age, who always brings her pet robin with her, 
 and who forms one of the spirit-band who perform 
 instrumental music at the dark circles, (many of which 
 I have attended, and which will be described in due 
 time), was among the earliest visitors. Then the 
 deceased members of their own family appeared — 
 among them Miranda, who came hand in hand with a 
 young man, named Griffin Grinnell, to whom she had 
 been betrothed. The lovers, parted for a while by 
 death, were reunited beyond the grave. 
 
 Francis and James, their deceased brothers, came 
 too. Then, as people began to flock to the old farm- 
 house, their personal friends manifested their presence, 
 the first, or nearly the first (for the family cannot defi- 
 nitely decide the point), being a Mrs. Anny Barker, 
 wife of G. Barker, of Hubbellton, Vt. One evening, 
 a young lady visitor saw the shade of her father, the 
 
A SriRIT IN UNIFORM. 129 
 
 late Captain Johnson, United States Navy, who came 
 in citizen's clothes. The daughter mentally requested 
 him to appear to her in his uniform, whereupon he 
 retired for a moment and then returned in full naval 
 dress, with sword and epaulettes. 
 
 This is one instance among many of the doing of 
 something by the apparitions in response to mental 
 requests made by spectators. The thing has occurred 
 to me several times, as will be seen further on. It 
 should also be noted that this supposed spirit re-appeared 
 in the uniform of his rank, and it is hardly credible 
 that William Eddy, in addition to all the other costumes 
 uninformed skeptics imagine his wardrobe to contain, 
 should have a full assortment of army and navy uni- 
 forms, for officers and privates. 
 
 What tender memories in many minds cling about 
 this rude apartment, where so many can say : 
 
 " Ere the evening lamps are lighted, 
 
 And, like phantoms grim and tall, 
 Shadows from the fitful fire-light 
 
 Dance upon the parlor wall ; 
 Then the forms of the departed 
 
 Enter at the open door ; 
 The beloved, the true-hearted, 
 
 Come to visit me once more." 
 
CHAPTER IX, 
 
 THE FIRST SEANCE. 
 
 THE now famous circle-room was built last Decem- 
 ber, and opened to the public on the evening of 
 January ist, 1874, on which occasion the exercises 
 began with a dark-circle, at which the spirit, or what 
 is claimed to be the spirit, of a sailor, named George 
 Dix, made a lengthy dedicatory address. He declared, 
 among other things, that the apartment was to be used 
 solely for spiritual seances, with the occasional excep- 
 tion of a quiet dance. After the dark-circle, one of the 
 usual kind for materializing was held, and addresses 
 and prayers were spoken by the spirits of Mrs. Eddy; 
 "Mrs. Eaton" (an old lady from New York State, who 
 made her first appearance here in October, 1872, during 
 her granddaughter's visit, and has acted as assistant 
 directress of seances ever since) ; a Mrs. "Wheeler, late 
 of Utica; Doctor Horton, also late of Utica, who 
 brought his two baby children in his arms and addressed 
 his widow ; and the elder of these two children, little 
 Minna, who spoke some words of comfort to her weep- 
 ing mother. 
 
 Since that eventful evening, William has held a mate- 
 130 
 
WILLIAM EDD Y AND DA VID D. HOME. 131 
 
 rialization circle every evening, Sundays excepted ; a 
 circumstance that, in view of the usual serious exhaus- 
 tion felt by mediums, is very remarkable. Mr. Crookes 
 says of David Home, the famous medium, that the 
 psychic force by which the phenomena are produced, is 
 attended by an expenditure of his vital force or nervous 
 energy, proportionate to the degree of its activity of 
 manifestation. Its flow through Mr. Home's system 
 "varies enormously," says Mr. Crookes, " not only from 
 week to week, but from hour to hour ; on some occa- 
 sions the force is inappreciable by my tests for an hour 
 or more, and then suddenly re-appears in great strength." 
 He testifies to " witnessing the painful state of nervous 
 and bodily prostration in which some of these experi- 
 ments have left Mr. Home" — to " seeing him lying in 
 an almost fainting condition on the floor, pale and 
 speechless" — and yet I, myself, having attended at 
 about fifty of William Eddy's materializations, can cer- 
 tify that, beyond a slight appearance of fatigue imme- 
 diately after emerging from the cabinet, he seems as 
 well as usual. He goes about his daily avocations, 
 takes no rest to speak of, says he has eaten nothing for 
 weeks but a little fruit, and yet, after as many as eighteen 
 ghosts have appeared in a single evening, his pulse is 
 regular, and he resumes the pipe that he laid down at 
 the moment of entering the circle-room. 
 
 If his materializations were nothing but trickery, 
 this might easily be accounted for, but I have satisfied 
 myself, and hope to satisfy the public beyond reason- 
 able doubt, that this is not the case. A pseudo-scientist 
 has recently spent one evening here, and is getting 
 
132 BOGUS INVESTIGATORS. 
 
 ready to publish in a book his conviction that both I and 
 the hundreds of other lay spectators have been deceived. 
 Has spent one evening, I say, and nevertheless writes 
 me that he is convinced, and requires " no more 
 evidence to convince the scientific world," that it is all 
 fraud. How different from the late Professor Hare, 
 who devoted years to the subject of spiritual inter- 
 course, and did not give his adherence to the doctrine 
 until he had completed a long series of scientific tests 
 and experiments ; and from Mr. Crookes, one of the 
 first scientific men in Great Britain, who spent three 
 years in the inquiry before he avowed himself satisfied ! 
 
 I reached Chittenden on my present mission, September 
 17th, 1874, and attended a circle the same evening. Out- 
 side a violent gale of wind was blowing, the clouds hung 
 low, the rain fell, and the atmospheric conditions would 
 in almost any other locality have been considered 
 unfavorable. A company of twenty-five persons assembled 
 in the circle-room, among them several who, like myself, 
 had arrived that day. Shortly after seven o'clock William 
 entered the cabinet, and we waited expectantly for our 
 weird visitors. To promote harmony of feeling among 
 the persons present, vocal and instrumental music was 
 resorted to, continuity of sound and rapidity of time 
 seeming to be more necessary than quality of execution. 
 
 I will say here that I have failed to get from Spiritual- 
 ists any very satisfactory explanation of the part that 
 music plays in these manifestations, and for lack of a 
 better will suggest one of my own. Pre-supposing that 
 there is such a thing in the human system as the force 
 mistermed "magnetic," sometimes " odic," and more 
 
THEORY OF SriRIT-CONTROL. 133 
 
 recently " psychic," which has its polarites, its positive 
 and negative qualities ; and that persons may be classed 
 among the positives and negatives respectively, the effect 
 of music, by concentrating attention upon itself, is to 
 reduce the positives to passivity, and by nervous stimula- 
 tion exalt the negatives to something of an equality of 
 condition with their more forceful neighbors. The result 
 is equilibrium bet%veen the two extremes, and consequent 
 receptivity : then, going so far as to concede that there 
 are such things as spirits, and that they can exert an 
 appreciable magnetic, odic, psychic (or whatever we 
 choose to call it) influence upon us, it is not difficult to 
 see that they are placed in such a positive attitude towards 
 their medium and his circle, as to enable them to force 
 their power upon us to the degree of producing the several 
 phases of manifestations. 
 
 The logician will say, that much is taken for granted in 
 this proposition, and so I will leave him to first note the 
 features of these phenomena wherever occurring, and 
 then at his leisure construct a better theory than mine. 
 
 So much for the psychological aspect of the case, and 
 to this extent some enlightened Spiritualists precede me. 
 But why should the spirits demand quick tunes — jigs, 
 waltzes, reels, and compositions of like character, in 
 which the constant repetition of the same notes occurs in 
 presto or prestissimo measure ? May the answer not be 
 suggested by two of Professor Tyndall's lectures at the 
 Royal Institution, in one of which he demonstrated that 
 a ray of light was allowed to traverse a strip of glass 
 every time he caused it to set up a musical sound ; the 
 glass being held in a vice, and the light from an electric 
 5* 
 
134 THE RHYTHM OF FLAMES. 
 
 lamp polarized upon it ; and in the other, upon " The 
 Rhythm of Flames," in which he showed that a flame 
 twenty inches in height would fall down to eight on the 
 slightest tap on an anvil. It responded to the tinkle of a 
 bunch of keys or a few pence shaken together, the creak- 
 ing of boots, the rustling of a silk dress or a piece of 
 paper; while certain intonations of the voice threw it 
 into violent commotion. (Epes Sargent's " Planchette," 
 p. 379). If we put ourselves for the purposes of this 
 inquiry into the position of the Spiritualists, we might 
 reasonably demand that men of science, investigating the 
 subject, should not overlook the fact, that much light may 
 be gained upon the nature and properties of this new 
 occult force, by experiments in this direction. I have 
 heard this call for rapid music, so often made, that I have 
 come to the conclusion that equal, constant, and rapid 
 vibrations of the atmosphere, play an important part in 
 the production of the phenomenon of materialization. 
 
 I am also satisfied that careful experiments in the 
 matter of the intensity and quality of the light used, 
 would result in unexpected and great discoveries. May 
 it not be, that the yellow ray bears some such relation to 
 spirit-materializations as it does to photography? 
 
 Doctor H. T. Child, of Philadelphia, writes me that, 
 while he thinks that if we understood this law, the mate- 
 rializations might be better, in his opinion it is more 
 important to have a good medium and good circle. He 
 has known instances, where a circle containing rude and 
 uncongenial persons, got nothing satisfactory ; while one 
 following it, on the same evening, obtained everything 
 that could be desired. 
 
U MKS. EATON" AND " HON TO." 135 
 
 We had not sat many minutes in our first " circle " 
 before a voice — the piping treble of an old woman — 
 addressed to us some remarks from behind the curtain 
 that hung over the open door of the cabinet, to the effect 
 that this was a bad night for manifestations, and none but 
 the strongest spirits could show themselves. I may as 
 well at once admit, that this voice had such peculiarities 
 of accent and provincial expressions, as to excite the sus- 
 picion that it was William speaking in falsetto. So I 
 crossed that off, in my note-book as a fact of no value to 
 the Spiritualists ; but since then, having seen the woman 
 herself — Mrs. Eaton — and heard her address me person- 
 ally from a distance of not more than ten feet, in the 
 self-same voice, I re-entered the fact and transcribe it 
 here. 
 
 The curtain presently stirred, and the Indian woman 
 named Honto, stepped on the platform. She appears 
 young, dark complexioned, of marked Indian features, 
 lithe and springy in movement, full of fun, natural in 
 manner, and full of inquisitiveness. She measures 5 feet 
 3 inches in height, against a painted scale I had placed 
 beside the cabinet door. To William Eddy she bears 
 not the slightest resemblance in any particular, all asser- 
 tions of any superficial observer to the contrary, notwith- 
 standing. I have seen her about thirty times, and have 
 necessarily enjoyed ample opportunities to compare her 
 with William in every particular. Nevertheless, the first 
 two times I saw her, I was so deceived by the dull light 
 as to fancy her the same as William in height and bulk. 
 In this circle-room, one's eye must be educated, as it 
 must at sea, to judge of distances, or in a mountainous 
 
136 HON TO ' S* COSTUMES. 
 
 region, to estimate the height and distance of the various 
 peaks. Let any one try even so simple an experiment, as 
 to judge how high a man's hat will come against the wall 
 when set upon the floor, and some idea will be attained 
 of the optical difficulties to be overcome, before one can 
 form a correct impression of the relative heights of the 
 spirits who present themselves. 
 
 She changes her dress frequently, sometimes appear- 
 ing in a dark skirt with light overdress, shaped like the 
 garment called a polonaise ; sometimes with these shades 
 reversed ; sometimes with light clothing throughout and 
 a sash around her waist, or bands crossed over her bosom ; 
 sometimes with a cap, and at others bareheaded ; some- 
 times with her black hair a yard or more in length, flowing 
 over her shoulders, and again with it braided in a single 
 rope down her back. A remarkable fact is, that at times 
 her hair is very long, and at others not longer than the 
 artist has represented it in the picture. I have seen her 
 with what seemed to be buckskin leggins, and a short 
 dress reaching a little below the knee ; and again, with high 
 moccasins trimmed about the top with what looked like 
 fur. Others tell me that they have seen her in a dress 
 upon which were two rows of phosphorescent buttons 
 gleaming in the obscure light like great diamonds, that 
 ran from each shoulder in curved lines to the bottom of 
 her skirt, but I have not seen the costume myself. 
 
 The sketch represents one of the phenomena attending 
 the appearance of this spirit-girl, and is what I witnessed 
 on the evening in question. Honto steps either to the 
 wall or to one of the two persons — Mrs. R. Cleveland and 
 Mr. E. V. Pritchard, of Albany, N. Y.— who usually 
 
L 
 
THE BE A TING HE A RT. 139 
 
 occupy chairs on the platform, and suddenly produces 
 a knitted shawl or a long piece of gauzy fabric, apparently 
 from the air itself, and exhibits it to the audience. The 
 light in the room is so very bad — about as strong as that 
 in the parlor when we sit before the dying embers " 'twixt 
 the gloamin' and the mirk " before the lamps are lighted 
 — that it is impossible to see the features of Honto or the 
 pattern of her shawl ; but the sketch shows the latter as 
 it appeared to us. She threw the slender fabric over the 
 railing, and so gave us an opportunity to see that its 
 strands were perfectly opaque.* . Then throwing it over 
 her head as a Spanish woman wears her mantilla, she 
 produced another, woolen, black and apparently striped ; 
 and then passed both behind the curtain. 
 
 Somebody in the audience then asked if she would 
 allow Mrs. Cleveland to feel the beating of her heart ; 
 whereupon she opened her dress and Mrs. Cleveland laid 
 her hand upon the bare flesh. It felt cold and moist, 
 not like that of a living person. The breast was a 
 woman's, and the heart beat feebly but rhythmically. The 
 same pulsation was felt in the wrist. Honto's hand was 
 hard and of medium size, her fingers broad but not 
 stumpy, its color dark — in a word, the hand of an Indian. 
 
 After Honto retired, various other spirits of Indians 
 and Whites (among the latter two little children) appeared 
 before us, but I must reserve further description for 
 another chapter. 
 
 * The platform-railing has been omitted in this and other full- 
 page pictures, because of the in artistic effect of so many straight 
 lines, and the additional fact that they interfere with the view of the 
 groups. This railing is a nuisance, at any rate, and should be 
 removed, Its only conceivable use, that I can see, is to deter rude 
 spectators from rushing forward to grasp the phantoms. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 MANY PHANTOM VISITORS. 
 
 THE next materialized spirit to make its appear- 
 ance after Honto, was that of a dark -faced 
 squaw, who calls herself " Bright Star." She is 
 shapely, tall, well-proportioned, and of a dignified car- 
 riage. She dresses in dark clothing, trimmed with 
 bands of white that look to us like broad tape in the 
 dim light, but that Mr. Pritchard says are beads. On 
 her head she wears a sort of frontlet, in the centre of 
 which is a jewel or luminous spot, that gives out a 
 phosphorescent gleam, shining in the obscurity like the 
 diamond in a rajah's turban. I have seen this spirit six 
 times to the present writing, and she always appears 
 dressed alike. 
 
 Next came " Daybreak," another squaw, dressed in 
 dark costume, who danced to the playing of the violin, 
 and then suddenly passed into the cabinet. As I shall 
 have frequent occasion to refer to the dancing of 
 spirits, especially Honto, who invariably indulges in 
 this amusement, I may as well say that William Eddy's 
 
 movements in the dance are as different from those of 
 
 140 
 
SANTUM THE INDIAN. 141 
 
 any of the former as possible. Several times we had 
 dancing in the hall for an hour or so before the organi- 
 zation of the circle, and I noticed that William's 
 motions are devoid of suppleness and agility. Though 
 he thoroughly enjoys himself and shows no reserve, he 
 holds his arms somewhat akimbo, his head back and 
 to one side, and his stomach projected ; while Ilonto's 
 body sways like that of a Zingala or an Oriental almeh 
 — lithe and graceful. William was evidently cut out 
 for a great medium, but not for a dancer. 
 
 " Daybreak " gone, then came " Santum," whose 
 appearance as regards stature and bulk is calculated to 
 excite surprise. He measures 6 feet 3 inches, full half 
 a foot more than the medium. His dress appears to be 
 a hunting-shirt of dressed buckskin, striped perpendic- 
 ularly and fringed at the seams, leggings of the same 
 and fringed the same, a feather in his head, and some- 
 times he wears a powder-horn slung by a belt across 
 his shoulder. This horn is a real one, presented to the 
 spirit some time ago by a visitor, who also gave Honto 
 an embroidered cap that she sometimes wears. 
 
 After Santum came two other Indian men, and then 
 several whites made their bow to the audience. The 
 first of these was William H. Reynolds, late of the shoe- 
 manufacturing firm of Reynolds Brothers, Utica, N. Y. 
 During the war he was Colonel of the 14th N. Y. 
 Artillery, attached to the 9th Army Corps, and died 
 May 6th, 1874, of fever, contracted in the service. He 
 was dressed in black and wore a full beard. As well 
 as I could distinguish, he was a square-shouldered, 
 gentlemanly appearing man. His shirt was white, and 
 
142 THE REYNOLDS BROTHERS. 
 
 I could see the collar distinctly. William Eddy wore, 
 as he always does, a brown checked-gingham shirt, 
 without collar or cuffs. 
 
 This spirit was followed by his brother, John E. Rey- 
 nolds, who died in New York State, Nov. 15th, i860. 
 He wore a dark suit, and no beard on his face except a 
 moustache. He graduated at Harvard University, but 
 I am not informed as to the year. His shoulders 
 sloped quite differently from William's, and he was 
 quite another looking person. 
 
 Then Mr. George A. Reynolds, the surviving brother, 
 recognized his nephew, Stephen R. Hopkins, a lad of 
 fifteen, with light, curly hair. Mr. Reynolds asked 
 '' Mrs. Eaton," the spirit directress, if she would answer 
 a mental question, and her voice immediately replied : 
 " Don't give yourself any anxiety about that ; you are 
 a medium fast .enough already ;" which, the interroga- 
 tor informed me, was what he desired to know. 
 
 We were next favored with the appearance in the 
 closet-door, of the tall figure of the late William Brown, 
 of York, Pa. He is the father of Edward Brown, who 
 married Delia Eddy a few months ago, and he makes 
 his salutation to the audience nearly every evening. 
 He is six feet, one inch, in stature, has white hair, no 
 beard, and dresses in a black suit of the Quaker cut. 
 
 His son sat in Mrs. Andrews' circle, at Moravia, N. 
 Y., twice a day for a whole year without seeing any of 
 his friends, and the same bad luck followed him here 
 for four or five weeks, at the expiration of which time 
 his father presented himself. For a while he could not 
 speak at all ; then he uttered a few simple greetings in 
 
WILLIAM BRO tVM 143 
 
 a faint whisper; and at length he conversed in a strong, 
 full, natural voice, saying whatsoever he pleased with 
 as great ease apparently, as in life. Except at one 
 seance in London, in 1870, with a noted lady medium, 
 I had never heard a spirit-voice before, and confess that 
 I was amazed to hear Mr. Brown's, issue from his lips 
 as though a living man stood before me and not a being 
 from the other world, clothed for a brief moment in a 
 body like my own. I leave theorists to settle the vexed 
 question, whether spirits actually employ the organs of 
 speech to articulate sounds, or by their will-power 
 cause certain vibrations of the air outside of and inde- 
 pendent of lips, palate, and tongue, in imitation of 
 spoken words. I can only say that after hearing 
 numerous spirit-addresses and conversations, I have 
 detected no difference in the movements of the lips, 
 from those of a living person. 
 
 Allan Kardec, a French spiritist author, calls the 
 phenomenon of spirit-speaking, pneumatophony, and 
 affirms it to be the result of the exercise of will-power 
 upon the invisible fluids of the atmosphere. He says 
 (p. 194): 
 
 " Spirits, being able to produce noises and rappings, can as well 
 make any sound of nature, vocal sounds imitating the human voice, 
 beside us or in the air. From what we know of the nature of spirits, 
 it may be believed that some of them of an inferior order delude 
 themselves, and believe they speak as when alive. (See Revue Spir- 
 He, February, 1858 : History of the Ghost of Mile. Clarion.) 
 
 " It is necessary to guard against taking for spirit-voices all sounds 
 that have no known cause. . . . Spirit or pneumatophonic sounds 
 have two very distinct methods of being produced ; sometimes it is a 
 voice which resounds in the soul, but while the words may be clear 
 and distinct, there is nothing material in them ; at other times they 
 are exterior and as distinctly articulated as if they came from a 
 person at our side. In whatever manner they may be produced, 
 
144 THE BABY GHOSTS. 
 
 the phenomenon of pneumatophony is almost always spontaneous, 
 and can be very rarely induced." 
 
 These are the generalizations of a writer whose 
 experience, wide as it was, did not include such wonders 
 as are common at Chittenden. I defy him or any other 
 acute person to listen to this spirit of Mr. Brown and 
 detect any difference, either in volume of sound, accent, 
 or the mechanical process by which it is produced, 
 between this voice and that of any living person of equal 
 age. Even the pumping sound of re-filling the lungs 
 with air after the articulation of sentences is readily 
 noticeable. 
 
 The phenomena of the evening concluded with the inci- 
 dent which furnished the subject of the accompanying 
 sketch of "The Re-united Family." A German music- 
 teacher of Hartford, named Max Lenzberg, and a very 
 worthy gentleman, to whom I am indebted for numerous 
 acts of courtesy for which I desire to make acknowledg- 
 ment, was at Chittenden with his wife and daughter. At 
 Mr. Eddy's request he played on the flute during the 
 seance, and so occupied a chair in advance of the front 
 row of spectators and within a few feet of the cabinet. 
 After Mr. Brown's disappearance, the curtain was again 
 drawn aside, and we saw standing at the threshold, two 
 children. One was a baby of about one year, and the 
 other a child of twelve or thirteen. Behind them, very 
 indistinctly, could be observed the form of an old woman, 
 who held up the curtain with her left hand and supported 
 the baby with her right. Mrs. Lenzberg, with a mother's 
 instinct, recognized her departed little ones, and with • 
 tender pathos, eagerly asked in German if they were not 
 
m 
 
THE RE-UNION. 147 
 
 hers. Immediately there came several loud responsive 
 raps, and the little Lena, as if drawn from her mother's 
 side by an irresistible power, crept forward and peered 
 at the forms that stood just at the edge of the black 
 shadows of the cabinet. There was a moment's silence 
 as she strained her eyes in the gaze, and then she said 
 joyfully : " Ja ! Ihr seid meine kleitie schwestcrn ! Nicht 
 wahr ? " There came again responsive raps, and the 
 spirit-forms danced and waved their arms as if in glee at 
 the re-union. 
 
 Some skeptics who have been here, in their eagerness 
 to attribute the Eddy phenomena to any other than 
 spiritual origin, have maintained that the baby forms 
 exhibited are made either of pillows or white wrappings 
 around William's legs. A sufficient answer to such asser- 
 tions may be found in the fact that I have more than 
 once seen babes in arms, nestle in the necks of their 
 bearers and clasp their arms about their necks, and heard 
 those standing, like the little Lenzberg children, speak. A 
 very dear little girl whom I have twice seen during my 
 visit, kissed her hand to me. This spirit at her second 
 appearance \yzis dressed in a short white frock, low- 
 necked and short-sleeved, with a sash around her waist 
 and ribbons at the shoulders. 
 
 The picture of a young girl with her head and shoulders 
 emerging from a sort of fog or steamy vapor, which I 
 print in connection with this chapter, is given because of 
 the sweetness of the face, and of its supposed representa- 
 tion of the process of materialization. It was procured 
 by me from Mrs. Eliza P. Morrill, of Springfield, Mass., 
 
1 48 SP URIO US PI/0 TOGRA PUS. 
 
 whom I met at the Eddys', and it is one of Mumler's so- 
 called '" spirit-photographs." 
 
 While I have no confidence in this picture, or in fact, 
 in any emanating from the same source, as directly or 
 indirectly of spiritual origin, yet many very worthy and 
 intelligent people, including Mr. Epes Sargent, do, and 
 this portrait will be regarded by such as among the best 
 specimens of the kind. 
 
 In fact, with the exception of the photographs taken in 
 London under Mr. Crookes' own supervision, and under 
 test conditions, I have never seen any of the so-called 
 spirit-photographs that appeared to me genuine. I have 
 in my possession one of those taken by Holmes, of Phila- 
 delphia, of a young woman whom he is pleased to call 
 " Katie King ; " but, to say nothing of the dissimilarity 
 in likeness between this girl and the original " Katie," of 
 London, the picture seems to bear upon its face intrinsic 
 marks of fraud. 
 
 If any explanation is required, let the inquirer examine 
 the shadow under the alleged spirit's chin, which was 
 evidently added with a brush and ink after the negative 
 was taken. I noticed this before I heard of the bad 
 reputation Holmes and his wife left behind them in 
 England, and long before the appearance of a recent 
 joint card of their agent, Doctor Child, and the Hon. 
 Robert Dale Owen withdrawing their previous indorse- 
 ment of the good character of these mediums. 
 
 Mr. Owen tells us, that when the figure that he supposes 
 to have been the original and real Katie King, dissolved 
 her materialized body in Philadelphia, she faded away 
 into thin vapor and gradually disappeared; whereas 
 
LIGHT-HEART, DISSOLVING. 
 
DISSOL VING SriRITS. 149 
 
 Honto, in my presence one evening, losing her power, 
 sank f as it were, into the floor up to her waist, the upper 
 portion of her body retaining its full solidity. 
 
 I have communications from various persons attest- 
 ing to the fact of their seeing materialized spirit-forms 
 dissolve in view of the circle, at the Eddys'. Among 
 the most convincing is the following, from a worthy 
 gentleman residing in Hartford : 
 
 Hartford, Conn., December 8th, 1874. 
 Dear Sir: In reply to your inquiry as to my seeing a spirit-form 
 dissolve outside the door of William Eddy's cabinet, I take pleasure 
 in communicating the following facts : 
 
 ' In June last, I visited Chittenden, in company with my wife, 
 wife's sister, Mrs. Waite, of this city, and a friend from Waterbury. 
 On one evening during our stay, my wife's mother, a former resident 
 of Hartford, who deceased March, 1859, at the age of 78 years, 
 appeared to us in white clothing, looking so natural that we recog- 
 nized her instantly. She stood outside the cabinet curtain, leaned 
 her body forward, and stretched out her arms to her daughter, as 
 though she were longing to embrace her. Mrs. Prior asked the 
 spirit if she could not speak to us, and she seemed to make a des- 
 perate effort to comply. But suddenly, as if she had exhausted all 
 her power of materialization in the attempt, her arms dropped, and 
 her form melted down to the floor, and disappeared from our view. 
 The figure did not dissolve into a mist and disperse laterally, but 
 sank down and disappeared, as if every particle comprising her 
 frame had suddenly lost its cohesion with every other, and the whole 
 fell into a heap together. Yours truly, 
 
 To Col. H. S. Olcott. Franklin Bolles. 
 
 One evening, in July last, at a circle at the same 
 place, Honto's form disappeared from sight in an 
 equally sudden and unaccountable manner. The cir- 
 cumstance is narrated, in a letter to me, by Mrs. Doctor 
 T. G. Horton, of Utica, N. Y., as follows : 
 
 On the evening in question, Honto came out as usual, material- 
 ized shawls, to the number, perhaps, of half a dozen, then retired 
 
1 5 o UNSA TISFA CTOR Y E VIDENCE. 
 
 into the cabinet, reappeared, came to the railing, stood there a 
 moment, and, to our amazement, began to settle down to the floor 
 and dissolve, until all form of a human being disappeared, and there 
 seemed nothing but a mass of drapery lying close to the railing. 
 This also melted slowly away, and every vestige of her was gone. 
 In about a minute or two she reappeared from the cabinet, smiling, 
 and seeming as if nothing had happened. She stood again by the 
 railing and again dissolved as before. William Eddy was not able 
 to give a sitting the next day. 
 
 I may as well add to Mrs. Horton's narrative, the 
 fact that when I saw Honto dissolve up to her waist, 
 she was close to the curtain, and pushing it aside with 
 her right arm, passed into the cabinet. Mrs. Cleveland 
 had been dancing with her a moment before, and saw 
 her after she had gone behind the shawl. She says 
 that the spirit-squaw was not more than a foot and a 
 half high when she lost sight of her. It was not two 
 minutes before she frisked out again as lively as ever. 
 
 These several instances, happening in the view of a 
 number of respectable persons, at various times, offer 
 strong and mutually corroborative proof of the fact, 
 that the dissolution of materialized spirit-forms, has 
 occurred in the mediumship of William Eddy. But I" 
 confess, upon a question of such great moment, I am 
 not satisfied to take even so much as the above and 
 consider the case proven. In my opinion, it is indis- 
 pensable that the phenomenon should be repeated 
 under such strictly test conditions as to leave no room 
 for more than one opinion. 
 
 Such conditions I should consider : ist. The having 
 William Eddy so shut into the farther end of his cabinet, 
 by means of a door that should be bolted upon him, 
 that he could not possibly come before the audience 
 
REQUIRED TESTS. \$\ 
 
 until the experiment was concluded, and until after the 
 occurrence of the phenomenon ; or, 2d. The enclosure 
 of the alleged materialized spirit-form in a cylinder of. 
 cloth, paper, or wire-netting, which could be fastened 
 to the floor so as to effectually prevent the escape there- 
 from of any living person, and the subsequent dissolu- 
 tion and disappearance of the spirit-body from the 
 cylinder ; or, 3d. The dissolution of the form upon the 
 platform, in the view of the audience, while its ankles 
 were fastened to the railing in so secure a manner that 
 no living person could release himself or herself with- 
 out detection ; or, 4th. The perforation of the alleged 
 spirit-form before dissolution by some weapon, in such 
 a way that if trickery were intended, the person would 
 be severely wounded and so discover his fraud. If 
 close approach were permitted, it would be easy to 
 satisfy oneself of the reality of the spirit-form by clasp- 
 ing it in one's arms and having it dis-matcrialize itself 
 while thus held. Or one of its hands might be rubbed 
 with croton oil or some other blistering substance, or 
 discolored with nitrate of silver. Submission to one 
 or all of these crucial tests would settle this whole 
 question, once and forever. 
 
 No investigator's report of experiments made in the 
 testing of spiritualistic phenomena, is worthy of a 
 moment's serious consideration until he proves that he 
 has disembarrassed the problem of the element of con- 
 federacy. Until he makes it appear that it is impossible 
 for any secreted allies to come to the assistance of the 
 medium, we may as well spare our time from profitless 
 waste in reading what he says, for there is no security for 
 
152 MA TERIA L IZA TION NO T A L IV A YS PERFE C T. 
 
 the genuineness of anything he has seen. But after 
 divesting the case of this feature, we have only one 
 alternative to consider, viz. : Whether the " materializa- 
 tions " are real, or the figures merely personated by the 
 medium. This is what I did with William Eddy's 
 cabinet; what Mr. Crookes did with Florence Cook's, in 
 London ; and what ought to have been done with the 
 Holmes' in Philadelphia. Neglect to do this, brought 
 upon Mr. Owen and Dr. Child, the humiliating necessity 
 to publish a card that throws unnecessary suspicion upon 
 every genuine phenomenon they witnessed, during the 
 past summer. 
 
 It appears that it is not necessary that the bodies of the 
 spirits who manifest themselves in William's circle, should 
 be fully materialized in every part. One evening, Mrs. 
 Cleveland, a neighbor, who is generally requested to take 
 §, seat upon the platform, and who is a great favorite with 
 Honto, was dancing with that spirit, and by accident 
 took hold of her arm below the shoulder, when she found 
 to her horror that it was not materialized, and her hand 
 grasped only the sleeve of the robe. The hand was a 
 solid hand attached to a vapory arm. 
 
 The spirits themselves say they have to learn the art of 
 self-materialization as one would any other art. At first 
 they could only make tangible hands, as in the cases of 
 the Davenports, the Foxs, and others, including the 
 Eddys. In fact, some mediums have never got beyond 
 this stage. Others, like Mrs. Andrews, of Moravia, N. Y., 
 the Potts Brothers, of Pennsylvania, and Dr. Slade, of 
 New York City, have masks or full heads appear ; while 
 the most powerful mediums, like Florence Coo'k, of 
 
JUDICIOUS CAUTION OBSERVED. 153 
 
 London, the Holmeses, of Philadelphia, (who, despite 
 their trickery, are admitted by Messrs. Crookes, Sergeant 
 Cox, Owen, Mrs. Andrews, and others, to be great 
 mediums, under favoring conditions,) and particularly 
 these wonderful Eddys, seem to furnish the spirits with 
 the means of calling before us, the materialized shapes 
 of people of every nation and kindred and tongue. 
 
 I say seem, although the careful experiments of Mr. 
 Crookes, under test conditions, have apparently demon- 
 strated the veritable visitation of a materialized spirit to 
 the world she left two centuries ago. The Philadelphia 
 "Katie King materializations " appear, at the date of 
 this writing, to have been wholly, or at least in great part, 
 fraudulent; and the forms I saw at Chittenden, while 
 apparently defying any other explanation than that they 
 are of supersensual origin, are still, as a scientific fact, to 
 be regarded as " not proven." Mr. Robert Dale Owen, 
 in his recent card to the public repudiating the Holmes 
 manifestations, considers the question of materialization 
 to be fully demonstrated by the results attained by Mr. 
 Crookes and myself; but I prefer to set those of the 
 former gentleman by themselves, and far above anything 
 I can offer as a contribution to our present stock of 
 knowledge, for I had no such chances as his to verify 
 the phenomena I witnessed. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ARE THEY PERSONATIONS? 
 
 HAVING divested our problem of the element of 
 confederacy, and made it clear that the forms 
 presenting themselves in William's materialization 
 circle, must be ascribed either to personations of charac- 
 ter by the medium, or the manifestation of an occult 
 force, the way lies smooth before us. 
 
 A man to be a successful personator must have a cer- 
 tain range of talents which any theatrical manager can 
 enumerate for us. He must: i. Be a natural actor; 
 2. Have professional training; 3. Be of average size, 
 so that attention may not be attracted to any extreme 
 disparity between his own figure and those of the charac- 
 ters he represents ; 4. Have access to a theatrical ward- 
 robe, furnished with numerous wigs, costumes, shoes, and 
 properties; 5. Have time to "make up his face," where 
 fair, swarthy, and black complexions are required ; 
 6. Have a good light to dress by; 7. Have room to 
 dress in ; 8. Be supple, of a vivacious temperament, 
 and accustomed to a great variety of people. In addition 
 to these the personator of the Eddy ghosts would need 
 . iS4 
 
WILLIAM EDDY IN. EVERY-DAY DRESS. 
 
WILLIAM AND HIS CABINET, 157 
 
 a knowledge of many languages, at least to the extent 
 of being able to hold brief conversations. 
 
 I think I have fairly stated the case. I leave it to 
 Lingard, or any other " character-sketch " delineator to 
 say, whether this is so or not. And now let the intelligent 
 reader cast his eyes upon the life-like, full-length sketch 
 of the medium, William H. Eddy, as he appears every 
 day, all day, and, barring the hat, at the moment of his 
 entrance into his " cabinet," and say whether he fills my 
 outline in any particular. He has not one peculiarity of 
 temperament, or physical organization, in common with 
 the professional actor. He is clumsy instead of supple ; 
 never acted on any stage or privately in his life ; is five 
 feet nine inches high, and weighs 179 pounds; has not a 
 shred of theatrical clothing in the house, nor a wig, nor 
 stage shoes, nor properties ; the ghosts appear after inter- 
 missions of from a half minute to four and five minutes ; 
 Indians succeeding whites, or vice versa, men women, or 
 the contrary, and children grown persons, the most 
 striking dissimilarities in person being as often after the 
 briefest as the longest intervals ; his cabinet is pitch dark, 
 the door is never closed, and only a woolen shawl hangs 
 before the entrance, through which the gleam of even a 
 rushlight would show plainly ; his cabinet measures two 
 feet in width by seven in length ; there is neither shelf, 
 nor cupboard, nor hanging-closet, where properties could 
 be stored, and the only window is effectually sealed up 
 with my own signet, against all access from without ; his 
 temperament is bilious-nervous, his movements slow and 
 devoid of springiness, his eye sad and introspective; 
 household duties, such as women ordinarily engage in, 
 
158 HIS TEMPERAMENTAL PECULIARITIES. 
 
 occupy him to the very time when he begins his seances ; 
 he has lived within himself, a simple, quiet, suffering life, 
 making few intimate friends, being in the world but not 
 of it; a recluse, in fact, by nature, who seems more 
 familiar with the beings we call uncanny, than those who 
 jostle us in this world, as we move along towards our 
 common goal. 
 
 As for his linguistic accomplishments, he speaks 
 his own mother tongue with a strong New England 
 accent of the vowels, and knows nothing of any other. 
 Add to all this that, after an acquaintance with him of 
 nearly two months, and the opportunity of seeing him 
 every day, almost every hour of the time, he gives me the 
 impression of being, at least, at the present time, a man 
 of pure mind and heart, tender and truthful, giving to 
 the poor every spare dollar he earns, frank and open to 
 all, having no vices, disguises, concealments, or pride, 
 hardly ever casting even a glance at the busy world that 
 lies beyond his native hills, and it must be conceded that 
 we have before our camera the unlikeliest of all men to 
 take rank among the great impostors of history. I pray 
 the reader not to fancy I am sketching a perfect man — 
 I mean, one whom we would turn to for comfort and com- 
 panionship in life. His very temperament unfits him for 
 general acquaintance. His childhood was one of injus- 
 tice, oppression, and cruel treatment from his natural 
 protector — from the father, who is usually to his child the 
 ideal of justice and benevolence, the earthly embodiment 
 of the Divine wisdom and patience. Where other boys 
 receive constant tokens of affection and indulgence, he 
 got blows, revilings, and bitter denunciations. His 
 
A GARDEN OF BITTER FRUITS. 159 
 
 mystic endowments, instead of proving a blessing, brought 
 only misery in their train ; and the poor lad, who loved 
 his mother with the warmth of a girl's heart, was forced 
 to see her subjected to the same outrageous rudeness as 
 he received himself. Then this father of his, showing 
 the innate meanness of his petty soul, made traffic of the 
 very constitutional peculiarities that he had striven so 
 hard to flog out of his children, and sent this boy and his 
 brothers and sisters out with a traveling showman, to be 
 robbed and shot at and ridden on rails ; half-starved, ill- 
 clothed, denounced as impostors, tortured by skeptical 
 committees, and by inconsiderate Spiritualists, overdoing 
 precaution in a desire to inspire confidence in what 
 might be manifested in presence of the young. 
 
 Fancy a child enduring all this, finding enemies 
 instead of friends at every step, knowing not whither to 
 turn for sympathy except to the world of spirits, and to 
 that most loving and sacred of all friends, his mother, 
 and who can expect to find the man of thirty affable, 
 cool, unimpressible, equable, suave, and accessible like 
 other men? He suffers from his enforced seclusiveness 
 all the while, but it cannot be helped. Many hearts 
 warm towards him, and would show their tenderness, but 
 they come twenty years too late. The seeds of distrust 
 were planted in boyhood, Avatered with tears, grafted 
 with sorrow, and the garden is choked with bitter fruits. 
 He has turned from man to the animal kingdom for com- 
 panionship, and surrounds himself with pets, which, at 
 least, he thinks, do not repay his care with deceit. 
 
 " The poor too often turn away unheard 
 
 From hearts that shut against them with a sound 
 
 That will be heard in Heaven." 
 
l6o 7 HE CABINET EXAMINED. 
 
 — as he turns away from a society that gave him the 
 cold shoulder, and threw him back upon himself. Poor 
 fellow ! if any envy his mediumship, let them come and 
 see what it has done for him, and what theirs has done 
 for his brothers and sisters. 
 
 Now to return to the cabinet. The sketch, as I said, 
 represents William as he appears when about to enter 
 the dark closet, from which I have seen emerge so 
 many, many different figures. Several times I have 
 stayed with him in the kitchen until after the circle was 
 formed up-stairs, and he was called to come. We 
 would sit chatting upon any indifferent subject, smok- 
 ing our pipes, and he making no sort of preparation, 
 either in dress or anything else, for the seance. Then 
 I have stepped into the cabinet, and seen that there was 
 nothing there but the bare floor and walls, the chair 
 and the cap and powder-horn that a visitor recently 
 presented to Honto and Santum respectively, and that 
 they sometimes, but not often, wear. 
 
 The night of my arrival, the voice of the spirit, Mrs. 
 Eaton, called me to bring a light and see the condition 
 of the medium, the instant that the last shape retired 
 behind the curtain. I found everything as usual in the 
 cabinet — no costumes scattered around, no signs of 
 dressing having been going on. The window was 
 closed against the admission of light, by a small black 
 shawl and a piece of horse-blanket held against the 
 panes by a bar of wood, cut to fit inside the frame. 
 The last forms that had shown themselves were those 
 of the two Lenzberg children, clad in white, but, 
 although not more than thirty seconds had elapsed, no 
 
THE SLEEPING MEDIUM. 
 
FOUR HUNDRED SPIRITS. 163 
 
 white drapery was to be seen. The medium was in a 
 deep sleep, his features relaxed, his breathing almost 
 imperceptible, his skin free from moisture, and every 
 indication presented, of profound obliviousness to exter- 
 nal things. The glare of the lamp and the noise of 
 my footsteps, did not awaken him, but, when I shook 
 him and called him by name, he opened his eyes and 
 regarded me with the startled look of one suddenly 
 aroused from slumber and seeing something unexpected 
 at his bed-side. 
 
 I have often seen persons come out of both the natu- 
 ral and cataleptic sleep, and unhesitatingly affirm that 
 this man was neither counterfeiting nor in an ordinary 
 state of somnolence. I am fortunately able to convey 
 an idea of how he looked, by reproducing a photograph 
 taken one day when he visited a gallery to secure a 
 likeness for a friend. He had no idea of anything hap- 
 pening out of the usual order, but hardly took his seat 
 before he was entranced, and the photographer com- 
 pleted the picture as it is. It was secretly loaned to 
 me, and William will first be apprised of the fact, by 
 seeing it in connection with this chapter. 
 
 I have seen, say, three or four hundred different 
 materialized spirits, or what purported to be such, and 
 in every imaginable variety of costume. I have seen 
 them of all sizes and shapes, of both sexes and all ages. 
 I say seen them, because that is just what I mean. 
 True, the light has been dim — very dim — and I have 
 not been able to recognize the features of a single face. 
 I could not even swear to the lineaments of certain of 
 my own personal friends who presented themselves. 
 
1 64 ONE EVENING INSUFFICIENT. 
 
 But, for all that, practice has so trained my facul- 
 ties that I am able to distinguish the salient points of 
 difference between the figures. I have no trouble, for 
 instance, in recognizing the aged from the young, the 
 dark from the light or white-haired, European from 
 Indian, Asiatic and African dresses, marked contrasts in 
 Stature and bulk, and especially whites from negroes. 
 So, while my testimony is worth nothing as regards 
 identity of faces, it is perfectly competent as to the fact 
 that a multitude of apparitions, totally different from 
 the medium, have been presented for my inspection. 
 What go to constitute a likeness, are a number of lines 
 about the eyes, nose and mouth, as thin as a knife- 
 blade's edge, the expression of eye, shape of features, 
 color and hair. These in such a light as this, are indis- 
 tinguishable, but, when a figure stands against a white 
 wall, the various parts composing it, and its costume, 
 are readily discerned by the trained eye. Moreover, 
 the peculiarities in appearance have been distinct 
 enough for our artist to present the reader with such 
 excellent sketches of a number of the most familiar 
 spirits, that they will be recognized by hundreds of 
 visitors at the old farm-house. 
 
 In my Sun letter of September 5th, I warned the 
 public against going to Chittenden for a single even- 
 ing, with the idea that they would be satisfied with' 
 what they saw. It is simply absurd to expect it, for the 
 light is so poor that one cannot, with untrained eye, 
 distinguish accurately between forms varying as much 
 as six inches in height. One gentleman who came with 
 me, and another of scientific reputation, echoed my own 
 
MATERIALIZED SPIRITS. 
 
A BOGUS INVESTIGATOR. 167 
 
 suspicion, that Honto was exactly like William Eddy- 
 in height and breadth of shoulders ; whereas I, who 
 have now seen her nearly thirty times, and had her 
 measure heights with living persons present, and back 
 up against my painted scale of feet and inches, posi- 
 tively know that she is just 5 feet 3 inches, while Wil- 
 liam Eddy is 5 feet 9 inches. As to breadth of shoulder, 
 depth of chest, and apparent weight, there is no resem- 
 blance between them. 
 
 As an instance of the cavalier treatment that this sub- 
 ject of Spiritualism, commonly receives at the hands of 
 the scientific and pseudo-scientific class, I may mention 
 the fact that one of the latter kind, who recently visited 
 the Eddy Homestead, and departed after attending a 
 single seance, fixed in his pre-conceived opinion that 
 the whole affair was a deception, is engaged in the 
 attempt to solve a certain medical problem, not of 
 primary importance, and has devoted years of time, and 
 collected returns from hundreds of correspondents, in 
 all parts of the country, before he has felt competent 
 to express an opinion ; and yet, when it comes to the 
 grandest problem of the age, and all ages — whether 
 we have immortal souls or die the death of dogs — he 
 needs only sixty minutes of observation of the most 
 startling phenomena the world ever saw, to " satisfy the 
 scientific world," that he has simply witnessed a series 
 of personations by an uneducated farmer, "with the 
 help of three dollars' worth of costumes ! " 
 
 The reader will not require to be reminded that I 
 have never expressed myself as satisfied with my own 
 investigations; but, on the contrary, have always 
 6* 
 
1 68 A TOY THUNDERBOLT. 
 
 deplored the impossibility of making my experiments 
 under test conditions. And yet I have seen hundreds 
 of " spirits " whose appearance I cannot account for, 
 and which cannot be explained upon the theory of con- 
 federacy, or, in my judgment, personation. I submit, 
 therefore, that if, after such an experience as this, I 
 confess the question to be still open, it becomes less 
 patient observers, to be modest enough not to give us 
 ex-cathedra opinions, after such a farcical investigation 
 as that of the person in question. 
 
 During one of our wars we had a numerous class of 
 patriots, who, while attending to their engrossing private 
 affairs, held themselves in readiness to exchange plow- 
 share for sword, and take the field at the first alarm of 
 danger. They were known as "Minute Men." For the 
 first time in my acquaintance with science, I have met 
 one of its self-styled votaries ready to investigate and 
 decide upon one of the greatest of topics after an hour's 
 examination. He should be forever known as Perpetual 
 President of the Society of Sixty-Minute Philosophers ! 
 He left Chittenden, breathing threatenings and slaughter. 
 Since then we have had his " expose " but the world still 
 moves on as though the thunderbolt had not fallen, and 
 he and it will rot and pass out of mind, and a score 
 more of like pretentious expositors arise, have their brief 
 hour, and be lost to view, while the phenomena will con- 
 tinue to bedevil the wits of the scientific world, until 
 some Columbus shall arise among them to lead the way 
 over the mysterious sea, beyond which the Truth lies 
 hidden. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 IS IT AN OCCULT FORCE? 
 
 HAVING tried to make it appear reasonably cer- 
 tain that the forms seen on the platform in the 
 circle-room are not character-personations by 
 William H. Eddy, I am prepared to consider the only 
 remaining alternative— that they imply the manifestation 
 of some occult force, either spontaneously generated or 
 under the control of intelligence. Here we have plain 
 sailing, for, as students of science, we ought to find no 
 difficulty in grappling with a subject which submits itself 
 to analysis as freely as any other within the reach of our 
 faculties. I see no more reason why we should not be 
 able to trace the phenomena of modern Spiritualism back 
 to their source, than those of heat, light, motion, electricity 
 or chemical action, if we only use the same patience and 
 resort to like tests. 
 
 We should take nothing for granted, and respect no 
 man's judgment who does. We should demand from t 
 the Spiritualists as broad a basis of facts for our belief as 
 we do from Huxley before receiving his theory, or from 
 Tyndall if he would have us accept any of the dogmas 
 
 169 
 
1 70 INVESTIGA TION DEMANDED. 
 
 propounded in his Belfast address. A philosophy that 
 shrinks from crucial tests I want none of. No real inves- 
 tigator takes things on faith. We should flout at and 
 cease debate with the Spiritualist who assumes to set his 
 creed above all other creeds as too sacred to be tried and 
 tested by every appliance of reason and science. The 
 individual preferences or fears of mediums are nothing 
 to us, for we are in quest of the truth, and would seek it 
 even at the bottom of a well. We should weigh the 
 mediums and their phenomena in the balances, and 
 reject whatsoever appears false. In this spirit, which is 
 the very essence of all scientific inquiry, I have tried, as 
 far as lay within my power, to grope my way among these 
 Eddy apparitions, and think the ground grows firm 
 beneath my feet. I know that I am only the guide 
 carrying the torch, and that the master. spirits are to come 
 after me; but at least I have traversed the country and 
 tried to observe the path so carefully as not to lead my 
 betters into the bog at either side. 
 
 Now, that a fair understanding may be established 
 between my reader and myself before I state any more 
 things that I have seen, let us consider this question of 
 the materialized spirits being the product of an undis- 
 covered force. The dogma of Tyndall has not yet been 
 demonstrated, either by him or any other man of science. 
 The word " demonstrate " is used advisedly ; for, while 
 it is true that the very recent experiments of Dr. Bastian, 
 F. R. S., in England, and of Dr. Timothy Lewis, in 
 India, seem to indicate that the thermal death-point 
 of living matter has been finally ascertained, and that 
 the flask experiments of the former gentleman, based 
 
SPONTANEO US GENERA TION. 1 7 1 
 
 upon this hypothesis, make it probable that the sponta- 
 neous generation of Bacteria germs has been observed, 
 yet the majority of scientists agree with Dr. Jeffreys- 
 Wyman in the opinion that the question is still in doubt. 
 
 Unless, therefore, we are ready to concede that Bastian 
 has settled the point in dispute, we may safely say 
 that all the efforts of the most learned philosophers of 
 France and Great Britain, have hitherto failed to show 
 spontaneous generation, under conditions which abso- 
 lutely excluded the admission of germs from the atmos- 
 phere. The experiments already made may ultimately 
 lead to this result, but they have not as yet ; and even if 
 the indestructibility and convertibility of force were 
 proven, the experimenters would still have to account for 
 that something behind, that " dynamic, unseen agency," 
 of which it is only the exponent, and which evolves 
 and directs the force towards its multiform manifestations. 
 
 Alas ! when they have wrested from space the secret 
 laws under which matter accretes and forms itself into 
 systems and worlds, and by which the myriad types of 
 vegetable and animal life are evolved, the mind will 
 return weary from its search after the Infinite Power that 
 established those laws and holds them to their appointed 
 work. 
 
 Well, then, if the English and French chemists, with 
 unlimited control of the best apparatus, and every other 
 help, have not evolved so much as microscopic animal 
 life, independent of germs admitted from the atmosphere, 
 is any one so audacious as to say, that these Vermont 
 farmers, without a penny's worth of mechanical or 
 chemical appliances, have gained such mastery over the 
 
1 7 2 THE A UTOMA TIC THEOR V. 
 
 imponderable fluids of the air, that at their pleasure, palpa- 
 ble human forms can be evoked, to cheat the senses into 
 the belief that they are endowed with life? Can any one 
 dare to maintain that to such evanescent, self-generated 
 forms, these conjurors can impart the faculties of hearing, 
 speech, and sight? Can make them walk like human 
 beings, breathe, sing, convey ideas, and sustain con- 
 versations in divers foreign tongues ? To walk may be 
 automatic, as Doctor Carpenter attempted to show, in his 
 pamphlet on the unconscious action of the human brain, 
 and, if the spontaneous generation of the Eddy ghosts 
 were conceded, it might be as easy to allow them the 
 capability of mere motion ; but to walk to a given point, 
 by request, or to do any other suggested thing, is not 
 automatic, but the evidence of motion guided by intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 When, therefore, these apparitions have, at my demand, 
 moved to the right or left, or stepped forward, or taken 
 hold of some object, or assumed certain attitudes, or 
 otherwise shown that they were capable of not only hear- 
 ing my voice, consenting to my request, and doing the 
 desired thing, but also were as able to control their 
 individual movements, by the power of their individual 
 will, as I myself, I saw that all theories of automatous 
 action must be abandoned, and the problem re-cast. In 
 such case I have to deal with sentient beings, and it 
 crowds me nearer and nearer to the verge, where I must 
 either surrender or leap. 
 
 If we have not to deal with a question of spontaneous 
 generation, are these apparitions the result of some occult 
 
PSYCHOLOGY AND MIND-READING. 173 
 
 force, set in motion by any human will ? In other words, 
 has the " medium," William H. Eddy, such power over 
 it, that he can cheat mothers into the belief that they see 
 their children, children their parents, brothers sisters, 
 friends friends? And are the apparitions subjective or 
 objective? Let us see. If he "psychologizes " any par- 
 ticular one of his audience, he does all, for all see the 
 same forms, hear them speak the same words, and -witness 
 them doing the same actions. If they are not phantoms 
 of the mind, but temporarily solid and substantial shapes, 
 created by the medium's will, out of the invisible mole- 
 cules floating in the air, what does that imply ? Simply 
 that William can not only read our thoughts, but see the 
 pictures of our deceased friends, as they are impressed on 
 our memory, and conjure up shapes that duplicate them in 
 dress, appearance, manners, and conversation : that this 
 uneducated man can at will speak any language he 
 chooses, recall family names, observe secret actions so as 
 to refer to them, and without time for preparation, delude 
 visitors arrived just before the hour of assembly, with 
 the spectres of those nearest and dearest to them. 
 
 Is not this absurd ? To believe such nonsense is far 
 more difficult than to yield at discretion, and acknowledge 
 that perhaps the spirit world may be a fact after all. 
 What hard climbing this is to reach the peak from which 
 the mind's eye may take in the whole plain of Truth at a 
 glance ! If we could only swallow the spiritualistic pill 
 at a gulp, how much trouble we might be spared. For 
 their explanation is so easy; every single phase of these 
 phenomena is so transparently simple, so in accordance 
 with law — an occult and as yet undiscovered law, it is 
 
174 THE IMPORTANCE OF INVESTIGATION. 
 
 true, but still law and not chance — that one " finds 
 peace in believing." 
 
 A clergyman asks me if the world would not demand 
 that the Spiritualists should show something of practical 
 benefit brought about by the spirits — something that 
 would add to the world's wealth. I referred him to the 
 position he took every Sunday of his life, when he asked : 
 " If a man gain the whole world and lose his own soul, 
 what profiteth him ? " and put it to him as a clergyman, 
 if the proving of immortal existence were not the most 
 priceless blessing that could be conferred upon the world 
 by these modern wonder-workers. He had not regarded 
 the matter from that side. 
 
 I am glad to receive a reinforcement of my appeal 
 for scientific investigation of these so-called spiritual 
 phenomena from a most unexpected quarter. Long 
 after this chapter, as originally written, appeared in the 
 Daily Graphic, the Scientific American, a conservative 
 journal, uses the following language : 
 
 " In the first place, then, we can find no words wherewith to ade- 
 quately express our sense of the magnitude of its importance to 
 Science, if it be true. Such words as profound, vast, stupendous, 
 would need to be strengthened a thousand-fold to be fitted for such 
 a use. If true, it will become the one grand event of the world's 
 history ; it will give an imperishable lustre of glory to the Nineteenth 
 Century. Its discoverer will have no rival in renown, and his name 
 will be written high above any other. For spiritualism involves a 
 stultification of what are considered the most certain and fundamen- 
 tal conclusions of Science. It denies the conservation of matter and 
 force ; it demands a reconstruction of our chemistry and physics, 
 and even our mathematics. It professes to create matter and force 
 out of nothing, and to annihilate them when created. If the pre- 
 tensions of spiritualism have a rational foundation, no more import- 
 ant work has been offered to men of Science than their verification. 
 A realization of the dreams of the elixir vita, the philosopher's 
 
THE FUTURE FAME OF MR. CROOKES. 175 
 
 Stone, and the perpetual motion, is of less importance to mankind 
 than the verification of spiritualism. 
 
 But some may say that we exaggerate the pretensions of spiritual- 
 ism, and that spiritualists, in the ratio of their intelligence, make 
 claims which are modest and moderate ; and perhaps the average 
 man says that, although a great part of spiritualism is deception and 
 imposture, yet there is something about it which is new and true. 
 To such we say that if there is any truth in it, of interest to science, 
 however small, it is worth while to seek for it with great diligence 
 and labor ; its discovery will surely bring an abundant reward. If 
 we positively knew that there was contained in spiritualism a scin- 
 tilla of new fact about matter, though it were as the needle in all 
 the hay stacks, or as the grain in all the sands of the sea, we would 
 not discourage the ambitious man of science in his search for it. 
 
 Mr. Crookes, as the discoverer of thallium, has achieved a great 
 eminence in science, and he is now nobly employing his talent in 
 the investigation of spiritualism, if he find in it, positively, some- 
 thing new to science. He does not need to be told that, if he really 
 discovers his psychic force, or any other unknown force, capable of 
 acting on matter, all the future ages will name him with Galvani and 
 Newton. Finally, say we emphatically, if there be truth in spirit- 
 ualism, in whole or in any part, let it be investigated. But concern- 
 ing such investigations, in view of very serious harm which hereto- 
 fore has often been caused by shallow and superficial dallyings with 
 the subject, we thoughtfully and solemnly advise that no investiga- 
 tion is worthy of the name unless it is inspired by the passionless 
 common sense of science. Also, remember this : The evidence 
 required to establish a fact, is proportioned to the improbability of 
 the fact." 
 
 In the farther discussion of his theme, the Editor 
 commends to the consideration of Mr. Crookes and 
 myself, respectively, resort to force to solve the materi- 
 alization problem ; but I agree with that eminent Eng- 
 lishman, that it is better to avoid resort to such unsci- 
 entific methods as long as possible. 
 
 So here we are at length : Confederacy, disproven ; 
 personation, discredited ; spontaneous generation of 
 the apparitions, impossible ; mind-reading by the 
 medium, followed by his creation of the shades of our 
 
176 MANY QUESTIONS. 
 
 deceased friends, absurd. Result: A possibility that, 
 by some occult control over now unknown forces of 
 nature, beings, other than those in the body can mani- 
 fest their presence to sight, touch, and hearing. If 
 beings, what beings ? Those they purport to be, or the 
 simulacra of such, formed and fashioned by tricky 
 creatures, who are suffered to trifle with the sacredest 
 feelings of our hearts ? If spirits, those of persons who 
 have lived on this earth ? — or those from other planets, 
 where the same relations as ours of body and mind, the 
 same laws of life and death, do not prevail ? Who and 
 whence are they ? Are they all evil, all good, or partly 
 both ? Is there a limit to their power to interfere in 
 the affairs of men ; and, especially, to control those 
 sensitives we call mediums ? Do the things they do 
 and the things they teach, indicate that the law of evo- 
 lution follows us beyond the grave, and we may rise to 
 grand heights of light and wisdom ? — or must we shun 
 them as the angels of hell itself, let loose to ruin us in 
 body and soul ? That is the issue. That is where we 
 stand ; and now the reader is prepared to let me take 
 him by the hand through this maze, and with me, "try 
 the spirits, if they be of God." 
 
 The illustration represents what happened on the 
 first evening of my visit, after William's materialization 
 seance closed. It shows some of the visible manifesta- 
 tions at Horatio G. Eddy's light-circles. Thousands 
 who have attended the public exhibitions of the Daven- 
 ports and other traveling mediums, will recognize them 
 as familiar. I was chosen as one of the committee, on 
 the evening when the Davenports first appeared in the 
 
A LIGHT CIRCLE. 1 79 
 
 Cooper Institute, several years ago, and saw five hands 
 simultaneously thrust out of the aperture in the cab- 
 inet-door, and, grasping one, had my hand squeezed so 
 that I felt the bruise for hours. Instead of using a 
 wooden box, Horatio Eddy hangs two shawls upon the 
 line that stretches from the chimney in the circle-room 
 to the south wall ; leaving an open space between it 
 and the ceiling of about two feet. 
 
 The one next the chimney, and behind Horatio's 
 chair, is a short one, and does not reach the floor by 
 nearly three feet ; and therefore, if it were possible for 
 him to execute tricks behind the other curtain, without 
 betraying himself by movements of his head, feet, 
 shoulders and body, or the disturbance of the shawl, he 
 would be favorably placed to do so. I have watched 
 him closely, and have never detected any such indica- 
 tions of fraud. Besides, it will appear in the course of 
 my narrative that, even if he had had both hands free 
 to do what he chose, he could not have done any one 
 of several things that I will recount. 
 
 The shawls merely form a screen, behind which it 
 must be almost as light as in front, by reason of the 
 open space between the cord and ceiling. A table is 
 pushed into the corner, and on it are laid the follow- 
 ing : One guitar, one concertina, seven bells of various 
 sizes, two tambourines, eight harmonicons (mostly dis- 
 abled), one flute, one piccolo, one flageolet, one tin 
 ditto, and one triangle. Horatio sits on a chair in front 
 of the curtain, to the left, next to him some gentleman 
 selected from the audience, and at the right of the latter 
 a lady similarly chosen. I give these positions as they 
 
i So THE BAB Y-I1AND. 
 
 are upon the platform. To the audience they would 
 appear reversed, Horatio being at the right and the 
 lady at the left. William Eddy then pins across the 
 breasts of the two males a third shawl, attaching the 
 ends to the curtain. A bright light is thrown upon 
 the group from a kerosene lamp placed near and turned 
 up high. 
 
 Presently there is a commotion among the articles on 
 the table, and loud knocks resound. The bells ring, 
 various instruments are displayed above the curtain ; 
 the guitar is played upon near the ceiling, beneath the 
 sitters' chairs, between the chimney side and Horatio's 
 chair to the left, flat against the south wall, beyond the 
 lady sitter to the right, and elsewhere ; a familiar air is 
 played in concert by a number of instruments ; bells 
 are rung singly and in harmony together, and hands of 
 various sizes and tints dart into sight through the aper- 
 ture in the curtain, or show themselves above the cord. 
 
 On the occasion referred to, the gentleman sitting 
 next to Horatio was requested, after a while, to give 
 place to a lady, who, when she had taken her seat and 
 the shawl was re-adjusted, was caressed by a child's 
 hand, a tiny little thing, that might have belonged to a 
 girl of two or three years. It patted her cheek, was 
 held at the lips to be kissed, laid upon her head, 
 smoothed her hair, and when her eyes filled with tears, 
 wiped them away and renewed its caresses. The artist 
 has shown me, standing far in advance of the rest of 
 the circle, where it will be noticed I had unobstructed 
 view of all that transpired; but when this little hand 
 was thrust from another world to cheer and encourage 
 
CON TRA ST OF II A ND S. 
 
 I8l 
 
 the mother, whose bosom it had so often clasped in life, 
 I had drawn close up in front, and saw the very dimples 
 on it. 1 am, therefore, entirely able and ready to affirm 
 that, even if the medium were an impostor, and had 
 wished to deceive his sitters with a clever juggle, he did 
 not then nor could not, for he could not transform his 
 long, brown, bony, sinewy hand, and his wrist, muti- 
 lated by the cruel tying of many " committees," into 
 the size, color, and shape of the baby-hand that was 
 materialized before my eyes. 
 
 Let the reader judge. Here we have front and back 
 
 views of Horatio's right hand, and a view of the baby 
 hand that I have referred to. The peculiar mutilation 
 of his wrist by the compression of the small bones of 
 the wrist by ligatures when they were soft, will be 
 observed, as well as the long, slim, almost claw-like 
 
1 82 STRANGE BUT TRUE. 
 
 fingers. Observe also, by reference to the large pic- 
 ture, that, as Horatio sits at the extreme left of the 
 three, he could only use his right hand for juggling, 
 whereas the child-hand is a left one. 
 
 It has been doubted, by certain persons who have 
 written to the newspapers, that more than one hand is 
 shown at once in these light circles, but aside from my 
 own observations, which prove the contrary, here we 
 have the certificate of a clergyman of Albany : 
 
 Chittenden, Oct. 29th, 1874. 
 
 This is to certify that at a light circle which I attended last even- 
 ing at the Eddy homestead, I distinctly saw three spirit-hands dis- 
 played at one time ; of which, one was that of a lady, a long, slim 
 hand as white as marble ; a second, the great hand of a man with 
 the entire little finger of the right hand missing ; the third, another 
 man's hand, very white. HENRY J. CLINKER. 
 
 28 Hawk St., Albany, N. Y. 
 
 A call was soon made for writing materials, and a 
 succession of spirit-hands clutching the pen that Wil- 
 liam offered them, and using my note-book as a tablet, 
 wrote names on cards and threw them towards the 
 audience. Some were names of the dead, some of the 
 living ; none, I am satisfied, familiar to the medium. 
 
 The performances of the evening concluded, at the 
 request of a visitor, with a series of imitations of the 
 boring, sawing, and splitting of wood, the filing of iron, 
 and the pumping of water, the sounds occurring behind 
 the curtain, and all being so true to nature as to evoke 
 great applause. 
 
 During the entire sitting, as during each of like char- 
 acter, Horatio's two hands are supposed to have clasped 
 the bared left arm of the person next him ; his eyes 
 were closed, and, as I said before, there was neither 
 
IV II ESC E CAME THE POWER? I S3 
 
 rustle of the curtain, nor movement of his feet, body, 
 or shoulders. For all the attention he apparently gave 
 to what was going on he might have been in a stupor, 
 or enjoying a nap after a full meal. 
 
 Now, this experience offers, perhaps, as favorable an 
 opportunity as any for the application of the theory, 
 that no reliance should be placed upon the evidence of 
 the senses. I either saw the baby-hand, and other 
 larger ones, not the medium's, heard the co-incidental 
 playing upon several instruments, and saw the guitar 
 played upon, not only beyond the reach of Horatio's 
 arm, but also flat against the south wall, in a position 
 where he could not possibly hold, much less play upon 
 it ; or I did not. 
 
 If not, who psychologized my senses, and made me 
 fancy all these things ? Not Horatio, for stronger wills 
 than his have vainly attempted to " magnetize " me, 
 and he could not do it, if he tried ever so long. Who 
 then ? Nobody else in the flesh, for no one else had 
 the slightest interest in the success of his circle; Wil- 
 liam and he never interfering with each other. Shall 
 we say, then, some self-directed, vagrant force, allying 
 itself with this medium ? Or, as a last extremity, shall 
 we say a spirit or spirits out of the body, and " let it go 
 at that ?" 
 
CHAPTER XIII. x 
 
 THE RESPONSIBILITY OF SCIENTISTS. 
 
 I SCARCELY ever sit down to write a chapter of this 
 story of my experience among the Chittenden ghosts 
 without feeling the similarity between my mental state 
 and that of one who threads his way through a strange 
 forest by night. At one moment the traveler catches a 
 glimpse of the path under some opening where the star- 
 light comes down, and anon, lost in obscurity he runs 
 against an obstacle that must be surmounted or skirted ; 
 his senses are kept constantly on the alert for foes of one 
 kind or another, his eyes strained for pitfalls; a vague 
 sense of danger besets him ; but through all, his .courage 
 is sustained by the hope of getting safely out of the woods, 
 and obtaining that security and repose which shall 
 reward him for all the difficulties of the journey. I am con- 
 tinually oppressed with a consciousness of the possibility 
 of deception by the truant senses, to the misleading of 
 many good people who are obliged to depend upon their 
 vigilance for the formation of their own opinions. It is 
 not that I mistrust these mediums more than all mediums, 
 
 but because, being obliged, so to say, to do my work at 
 
 184 
 
MEDIUMS NOT RESPONSIBLE. 185 
 
 arm's length in consequence of their peculiar disposition, 
 I am kept forever on the watch. 
 
 How vast a pity it is that this matter of the intercourse 
 between the two worlds is so tainted with falsehood as 
 to make such vigilance necessary ; that the observation 
 of its phenomena is so much in the hands of ignorant, 
 dishonest, and even dissolute people ; that the most 
 atrocious fraud is often practised upon honest investiga- 
 tors, and that the sacredest feelings of the heart are 
 trifled with for gain i But the responsibility for all this 
 is easily placed. It lies at the door of those men of 
 science who could discover to us _the fundamental law 
 upon which these things rest, if they would, but do not ; 
 so turning us over to charlatans and enthusiasts to be 
 deceived and misled until our own dearly bought experi- 
 ence teaches us, and shames them into tardy action. If 
 it is true that most mediums will cheat, when their real 
 power temporarily leaves them, as it is, that only makes it 
 all the more necessary that competent investigators 
 should set to work without loss of time to discover the 
 rule by which we might know the false from the true 
 phenomena. 
 
 The pusillanimity of the men of the laboratory has 
 been as great as the blind violence of the clergy. The 
 one have not dared to pursue investigations that might 
 bring upon them the censure of an ignorant public ; the 
 other have denounced as devilish, if not trivial, a series 
 of phenomena that, if true, will soon be the last refuge 
 of the church from the destructive engineering of the 
 sappers of science. If both had joined forces twenty- 
 seven years ago in a patient and thorough investigation 
 
1 8 6 ST A G AND HO UNDS. 
 
 of these " spiritual " phenomena, the law of their mani- 
 festation would have been long ago discovered, and the 
 public would have been spared, at least the major part 
 of the swindles and trickery by which mediums have 
 defrauded it. Professor Robert Hare, the discoverer of 
 the oxy-hydrogen blow-pipe, and one of the most 
 eminent chemists of his day, whose name I have already 
 mentioned in this work, recognized the duty devolving 
 upon him, and spent some years in an investigation of 
 Spiritualism. The result was his conversion to the 
 belief. His colleagues, instead of applauding his course 
 and awarding him the credit he deserved, set to calling 
 him an imbecile, and, like a pack of hounds in full cry, 
 ran together after the noble quarry, with a scent breast- 
 high. 
 
 This is what they are doing now to Wallace, Crookes, 
 Varley, and the Continental philosophers. This is what 
 their prototypes did to Columbus, Galileo, Harvey, 
 Watt, Faust, and every other man who, being of giant 
 character, could, so to speak, look over the heads of the 
 crowd, and make them feel their own littleness. Mean 
 envy begets spite, and spite malice, and malice cruelty. 
 Until, then, the scientists give a full and fair investigation 
 to this subject, and proclaim in an authoritative manner 
 the truth, we need spend no time in denouncing mediums 
 for charlatanry. We might as justly censure the people 
 of a row of tenement-houses for piling the street full of 
 garbage, while a competent Board of Health was in 
 existence, but neglecting its duty. 
 
 It has been observed by frequenters of these " circles " 
 that the appearance and behavior of Honto are good 
 
A SOCIAL DANCE. 187 
 
 indications of the general character of the manifestations 
 for the evening ; if she is active, the seance will be a 
 good one ; if not, the reverse. The plain deduction from 
 this is, of course, that she and the other spirits are alike 
 subject to the same laws governing the occurrence of 
 the phenomena ; and not as some devout Spiritualists 
 suppose, that her condition reflects upon that of her 
 fellows by a mysterious exercise of her will upon their 
 power of materialization. 
 
 On the second evening of my visit Honto was the 
 first spirit to appear, and she remained in sight nearly fifteen 
 minutes. Mrs. Cleveland and Mr. Pritchard occupied 
 their usual chairs at either end of the platform, and 
 Honto danced with the former in a lively manner, balanc- 
 ing, advancing, crossing over, and turning the old lady 
 as though the whole delight of her soul were in the 
 figures of the dance. She would sway first to one side 
 and then the other, raise her hands above her head, bend 
 backwards until her spine was nearly doubled upon 
 itself, like a carpenter's rule, and fling herself about in an 
 exuberance of childish glee. Leaving her partner, she 
 then passed to the other end of the stage, always keep- 
 ing step to the music, and balanced to Mr. Pritchard, 
 who, being partially paralyzed, could only take her 
 hands in his, and humor her fancy by waving them from 
 side to side and up and down, as her light feet rose and 
 fell. The spirit-girl held her face close to each of theirs, 
 that they might scan her features, and making Mrs. 
 Cleveland turn about, she stood back against back with 
 her to show us her height. The living woman measures 
 just five feet seven inches, and Honto, holding herself erect, 
 
1 88 A PATHETIC SCENE. 
 
 was about half a head shorter. The skirt of her dress 
 to-night reached but little below her knees, so that I easily 
 assured myself that she was no man making himself short 
 by bending his legs. 
 
 The apparition of a youngish woman holding a baby 
 in her arms followed immediately after Honto's retire- 
 ment, and caused an exhibition of tender pathos. In 
 the semi-darkness of the room it is, as I have said before, 
 generally but not always the case, that persons cannot 
 recognize the spirits until attention has been specially 
 drawn to them, when their individuality is settled by the 
 general appearance of their form, weight, and motions, 
 in case no words are spoken by them to their questioning 
 friends. In this case the usual query, " Is it for me ? " 
 was running along the line, when a woman's voice 
 exclaimed in an agonizing tone, " Is that my baby ? Is it 
 
 my ; is it Charlie ? " The spirit-woman nodded 
 
 and smiled and held the baby forward for recognition. 
 There was a sob, a wail, an outburst of maternal tender- 
 ness : " My darling ! My angel ! " — and the poor mother 
 could say no more, for sobs choked her utterance. 
 
 This scene was followed by another of like character. 
 A German Jewess of nervous temperament sat beside 
 me on the front bench. The curtain was pushed aside, 
 and there in the cabinet's door stood her daughter of 
 twelve years, in a white gown, and with her black hair 
 brushed back from her temples. The mother, overcome 
 with joy, poured forth a volley of questions in German, 
 intermingled with ejaculations, which the happy child 
 tried to answer by rapping assent or dissent with her 
 knuckles upon the door-post, and disappeared as her 
 
WELL-KNOWN SPIRIT-FORMS. 
 
A SCALE OF HEIGHTS. 191 
 
 mother was ready to fall into a swoon from excess of 
 emotion. 
 
 Ten spirits in all showed themselves, viz.: Honto; 
 
 Mrs. Carpenter, an elderly lady; Abby ; the lady 
 
 and infant ; two children ; a German, named Abraham 
 Alsbach, who spoke German to his sister ; a young lady 
 with long blonde hair, who wore a white dress with 
 low neck and short sleeves and a flowing train — a very 
 pretty spirit ; and an aged lady, the grandmother of a 
 person present. 
 
 On the next evening the shapes of seven Indians and 
 five whites were seen, and a majority of them were so 
 obliging as to back up to the wall and allow themselves 
 to be measured. In the hopes of aiding my judgment 
 as to the relative heights of the medium and the sev- 
 eral spirits, I caused two strips of white muslin to be 
 painted in feet and inches, and tacked them on the 
 wall at either side of the cabinet door. This would 
 enable the eye to note where the head of each appari- 
 tion reached at the moment the spirit stepped over the 
 threshold. The painter, however, made the mistake 
 of painting the figures about a third too small, and, 
 therefore, while with the fair light we had the first 
 evening the scale was used I could see heights to with- 
 in a couple of inches, I had to rely upon Mr. Pritchard 
 to call off the exact figures. One most important result 
 was, at any rate, attained in settling beyond question 
 the fact that figures, able to stand alone and walk, were 
 seen, whose heights varied from 2 feet 1 inch to 6 feet 
 2 3-4 inches. Of these extremes, one was Santum, the 
 Winnebago spirit, and the other a little white child, 
 
192 
 
 A TIME-TABLE. 
 
 who leaned against the right-hand door-post. I timed 
 the intervals between the appearance of four of the 
 apparitions, and found them as follows: 
 
 From departure of 
 spirit of 
 
 Santum — Sex, male; height, 
 6 feet 2 3-4 inches ; dress, 
 Indian, ornamented with 
 stripes of embroidery and 
 fringe of buckskin ; com 
 plexion, dark copper.. . . 
 
 B- 
 
 R- 
 
 Mrs. R- 
 
 Swift Cloud. 
 
 To arrival of 
 spirit of 
 
 B — R . Sex, male ; 
 
 complexion, white; hair, 
 light ; age, fourteen ; 
 height, 4 feet 9 inches ; 
 dress, European (jacket 
 and trousers dark, white 
 shirt, black tie) 
 
 Old Mrs. R , mother 
 
 of lady present — Sex, 
 female ; complexion, 
 light ; hair, white ; age, 
 about sixty; dress, Euro 
 pean 
 
 " Swift Cloud " — Sex, 
 male ; complexion, cop 
 per; hair, black; height, 
 5 feet 10 inches ; dress, 
 Indian (blue jacket with 
 fringed sleeves, brown 
 or gray hunting-shirt, 
 worn outside, leggings 
 fringed, and feather in 
 hair) 
 
 A child — Sex, male ; age, 
 six ; height, — ; dress, 
 European 
 
 Interval of 
 tune. 
 
 M. S. 
 
 45 
 
 50 
 
 35 
 
 30 
 
 This was a Saturday night, and according to rule no 
 circle was held the following evening, but an event of 
 serious import to at least one person occurred which is 
 worth recounting. The house being crowded with 
 visitors, William Eddy had for a bed-fellow a Mr. Car- 
 penter, of Malone, New York, a gentleman who 
 impressed me as a person of candor and intelligence, 
 and who has enjoyed the advantage of much general 
 travel, as well as a voyage around the world. William 
 had shaved off his moustache during the hot weather, 
 
THE MALICIOUS BARBER. 193 
 
 but was now allowing it to grow, and it had attained a 
 length of perhaps half an inch. On Sunday night the 
 two retired and lay awake talking, when Mr. Carpen- 
 ter was afforded a first-class sensation, which I prefer 
 him to describe in his own fashion : 
 
 Chittenden, Vt., Sept. 21st, 1S74. 
 Mr. Okott, 
 
 Dear Sir: In compliance with your request, I repeat the events 
 of last night, as follows: 1 
 
 After retiring to bed as usual, with William Eddy, we lay talking 
 for some time, when he suddenly became silent. A shiver or slight 
 convulsion seemed to run through his body, and I heard a voice say : 
 " Now I 've got you just where I want you." I asked : " Whom do 
 you mean ; do you mean me ? " The voice replied, " No ; Mr. Eddy." 
 I then asked: "Who is it? Is it Mr. Morse?" The voice replied, 
 " No, it's Asa Perkins." Addressing William apparently, the voice 
 continued : " I'll learn you not to keep me around here all day and 
 not let me come. I'll put a mark on you so you'll know me when I 
 want to come again." I then heard the scraping of a razor, and the 
 voice said : " There, I've put a mark on you, so I guess you'll know 
 me when I want to come again." I asked the kind of a mark he 
 had put on William. The voice said: "I've cut one side of his 
 moustache off ; you just feel." I felt his lip, and sure enough, one 
 side of his moustache was gone. 
 
 The spirit then left and William came to himself again. The 
 voice had told me not to tell William what had been done, so I said 
 nothing. 
 
 In the morning William discovered the trick when he looked in 
 the glass, and was so angry that he declared he would go at once to 
 New York and take the first vessel for Europe, and put himself in 
 such a condition that neither spirits nor mortals could play tricks on 
 him. He was vexed at all who saw him for not telling of it at once. 
 
 The razor with which the shaving was done, lay on a shelf in the 
 corner cupboard, and to get and use it, of course, the spirit must 
 have materialized himself. Henry Carpenter. 
 
 No wonder that the medium was out of temper, for 
 it foreboded no good to him if, after resigning himself 
 to mediumship, he should be at the mercy of any pass- 
 ing poltergeist, and no friendly power stood by to protect 
 
194 THE SMOKING SQUAW. 
 
 him from harm. He presented a comical enough 
 appearance with his lip half shaved, and his indigna- 
 tion was forcibly expressed at all who had suffered him 
 to go about for an hour or so looking like such a fright, 
 without telling him of his misfortune. 
 
 The weather on Monday evening was favorable, the 
 moon shining brightly, the temperature of the air low, 
 and a hard frost beginning. Eight spirits showed them- 
 selves — four Indians and four whites. Honto came 
 first, and went through her usual performance, " mate- 
 rializing " shawls, pieces of cloth, and white lace, and 
 dancing. She moved to the extreme south end of the 
 platform, and stood there making signs to Horatio Eddy 
 which he did not understand. She was just turning to 
 go back, when Mrs. Eaton's shrill voice, calling from 
 ■within the cabinet, said : " She wants to smoke." I filled 
 my own pipe and handed it to Horatio, who lighted it, 
 and gave it to the squaw ; and then we had the astonish- 
 ing spectacle of a materialized spirit from the other 
 world, walking about and drawing such great whiffs 
 from a tobacco-pipe, that the glowing contents of the 
 bowl cast a ruddy glow upon her coppery features. 
 Alas ! for all our poetical fancies about vapory forms, 
 and snowy robes, and shining wings, and harps of gold 
 ■ — there stood a smoking squaw before us, in feature, 
 costume and complexion the type of her race, and with 
 no more appearance of spirituality about her than any 
 of the women in the room, who sat there regarding 
 her with amazement ! 
 
 Another squaw who appeared that evening was a 
 new-comer, unknown to any one present, but claiming 
 
THE SMOKING SQUAW. 
 
TWO VOICES AT ONCE. 197 
 
 to be one of the band influencing a medium visitor. 
 She was a very short woman, not above five feet high, 
 and of a very much darker complexion than Honto. 
 She wore a dress of dark blue or black, apparently the 
 former — trimmed with bands of large beads that clat- 
 tered as she walked. Her moccasins and leggings 
 were also trimmed with them, and her hair was very 
 long and thick, and hung free down her back. 
 
 Mrs. R saw her son again to-night, and in reply 
 
 to her question : " Are you happy, my son ?" I heard 
 him distinctly say: "I am, mother!" There was no 
 ventriloquism by somebody within the cabinet, for I 
 dimly saw his lips move, and at the same time he made 
 a reassuring gesture to lend emphasis to his words. 
 
 And now will the reader go back a paragraph and 
 note what may have escaped his notice : That while 
 Honto was out on the stage, a dozen feet distant from 
 the cabinet, and with her back towards it, we were 
 addressed by another person from within its dark 
 recess ! It having been demonstrated that William has 
 no confederates, it is in order for the skeptics to choose 
 between the alternatives of admitting that Honto and 
 he are not identical, or of accounting for the presence 
 of a second person in a place where it was a physical 
 impossibility for any mortal to be. 
 
 Another circumstance going to prove the same thing 
 I find I have omitted to mention, viz: Whenever 
 Honto passes one of her materialized shawls or pieces 
 of cloth into the cabinet, after exhibiting it to the audi- 
 ence, it is not thrown in, but handed to some other person 
 behind the curtain. Who it is we know not, for we 
 7* 
 
198 TWO SPIRITS AT ONE TIME. 
 
 never see the form, nor even a hand. The action is not 
 done in a way to attract attention, for it is so natural ; 
 and I suppose I must have seen it a dozen times, before 
 I appreciated its importance as evidence in favor of the 
 defendant, which, of course, the medium must be 
 regarded as being. 
 
 Other evidence, and of the best kind, going to show 
 that the forms appearing upon the platform are not the 
 medium, is afforded in the following certificate, which 
 has been handed to me by one of the signers. It so 
 happened that the whole of this party found themselves 
 together at Chittenden on a second visit, and I was thus 
 enabled to procure their joint testimony as to the inter- 
 esting facts stated : 
 
 Chittenden, October 21st, 1874. 
 We hereby certify that at a circle, held on the 28th of April last, 
 in the new hall at the Eddy homestead, among other things that 
 occurred, was the following, which we regarded as very conclusive 
 as to the genuineness of the spirit materializations : " Santum" was 
 out on the platform, and another Indian of almost as great stature 
 came out, and the two passed and re-passed each other as they walked 
 up and down. The stranger chief retired first, and Santum followed 
 him. At the same time, a conversation was being carried on between 
 " George Dix," " Mayflower," old " Mr. Morse," and " Mrs. Eaton," 
 inside the cabinet. We recognized the familiar voice of each. 
 
 We had all examined the cabinet that evening, and helped clear 
 it of some plaster and other rubbish. There was no window in it 
 then. R. Hodgson, M. D., Stoneham, Mass. 
 
 George Ralph, Utica, N. Y. 
 
 Sarah A. Ehle, Utica, N. Y. 
 
 Cora C. Ehle, Utica, N. Y. 
 
 Hermon Ehle, Utica, N. Y. 
 
 Observe the points covered in this document: 1. 
 Two giant Indian spirits are seen at once, walking up 
 and down; 2. A conversation between four voices is 
 
A BUSY SEANCE. 201 
 
 going on inside the cabinet, while the two Indians are 
 outside, in view ; 3. There was no window then in the 
 cabinet; this seance being held in April, three months 
 after the circle-room was built, and the window not 
 being cut through the wall until the following July. 
 
 On the next evening I saw more spirits than on any 
 other single occasion but one, during my whole visit. 
 Seventeen showed themselves, and all were whites. 
 There were of babies, 2; small children, 3; women, 
 young and old, 5 ; and adult males, 7. The theory that 
 deceptive imitations of little children were made by 
 wrapping white rags around one or both the medium's 
 legs, as occasion required, was destroyed by the circum- 
 stance that the smallest child, not a babe, I saw that 
 evening, bowed and curtsied to its mother, in reply to her 
 question as to its identity. 
 
 Mr. Pritchard, who sat next to me on my right in the 
 front row, was called to the platform by Mrs. Eaton's 
 voice, and when he reached there, his two nephews 
 William and Chester Packard, late of Albany, N. Y., 
 came out in turn to greet him ; the former shaking hands 
 with him, and laying his left hand upon his uncle's 
 shoulder. 
 
 At the close of the evening, Mrs. Eaton's voice, 
 addressing me, said that William was being developed 
 for a new and startling phase of mediumship, the nature 
 of which she did not condescend to explain. 
 
 I have a memorandum among my notes of this day, 
 that a number of persons from different localities, were 
 turned back upon applying for admission to the farm- 
 house ; and at the risk of appearing over-urgent, recall 
 
202 DISAPPOINTMENT. 
 
 attention to what I have previously said upon this subject. 
 I have seen respectable persons refused, after making 
 very long journeys, and assuming expenses that I am 
 sure they could ill-afford, to have the satisfaction of seeing 
 their loved and lost ones. It is a bitter disappointment 
 in any case, to have the door shut in one's face under 
 such circumstances, but to those whose hearts are bleed- 
 ing from wounds just inflicted, it must have been agony. 
 All my sympathies have gone out to some sad-eyed 
 women, whose wistful gaze has lingered about the door, 
 as the horses' heads were finally turned towards Rutland. 
 I have felt at such times the desire for unlimited wealth, 
 that, after proving the reality of these phenomena, I 
 might buy this place, erect great buildings, pension off 
 the brothers for life, and throw open the doors of a new 
 and capacious circle-room to all who might come. 
 
 But what can these boys do? Their ancient house 
 holds only a score of strangers, even with close packing, 
 and they are forced to establish rules of admission, and 
 stand by them. If people will come from Michigan or 
 Minnesota, from Kentucky or South Carolina, without 
 assuring themselves in advance of bed and board, the 
 responsibility of exclusion rests with them. I have had 
 some of my own personal acquaintances served so, and 
 did not remonstrate. But it would save disappointment 
 and trouble to all concerned, if some sort of system were 
 inflexibly maintained. It seems to me that it would be a 
 very easy matter for the family to issue cards to appli- 
 cants, good for so many days from and after such a date. 
 As things are mismanaged at present, good, candid people 
 are often refused, and penniless or deceitful marplots 
 
SOME RULE NECESSARY. 203 
 
 often received. It will be found in every instance, I 
 think, where visitors have gone away dissatisfied with the 
 genuineness of the manifestations, that they have stayed 
 less than a week, and so had next to no opportunity to 
 really see or understand the phenomena as they are. 
 
 Nearly every one of the scurrilous attacks that have 
 appeared in newspapers, has been written by just such 
 superficial investigators, and the family owe it to them- 
 selves to take nobody for less than one week. But it is a 
 waste of words to talk to them about their reputations as 
 mediums, their duties to the public, or their treatment of 
 visitors. Their reply is, that the house is their home, they 
 invite none to come, and they have the right to say whom 
 they will accept, and whom reject. As to their reputa- 
 tions, they profess to care nothing as to what is said 
 concerning them, good, bad, or indifferent. They are a 
 strange family, and seem to reserve their worst treatment 
 for those who are most desirous to befriend them. There 
 are exceptions, but this seems the rule. 
 
 Another argument in favor of the establishment of such 
 a rule as that above suggested, is the uncertainty as to a 
 visitor seeing his friends in any short stay. I have fre- 
 quently known of their being favored in their first seance, 
 and, again, as often of their seeing nobody they cared 
 for, even after waiting patiently for a week or more. If 
 we could " call up " whomsoever we chose, as Saul did 
 the shade of Samuel, it would be another matter, but 
 under present conditions the visits of our angel friends 
 seem to depend upon laws beyond their control or our 
 own. 
 
 For my part, I confess that, in view of the uncertainty 
 
204 IDENTITY OF MINOR CONSEQUENCE. 
 
 of our being able to demonstrate their identity even 
 when they do come, if they come at all, in consequence 
 of our ignorance of the limits to the mischievous power 
 of the jugglers of the other world to cheat us with coun- 
 terfeit presentments of our " deceased " friends, and the 
 unsatisfied feeling that their flitting appearance before 
 our eyes leaves behind, I care less that any individual 
 person should come, than that any spirit at all should be 
 able to break down the wall between the two worlds. In 
 short, if I can be satisfied through these " manifestations " 
 of the great basic fact of Immortality, I am satisfied to 
 wait with a cheerful heart for the coming of that hour, 
 common to us all, when the mystery of life will be solved, 
 and the veil be drawn aside to let the glorious light 
 stream in. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE DARK CIRCLE. 
 
 WILLIAM'S circle was followed by one of Horatio's 
 " dark-circles," in which what occurs, is in a room 
 totally dark. The preparations for this event 
 consist in hanging shawls or blankets over the four win- 
 dows nearest the platform, to exclude even starlight, 
 removing the table with its array of musical instruments 
 to a position on the main floor just in front of the railing, 
 and tying Horatio in a chair, placed to the right of the 
 table and in front of the spectators. Upon the extinction 
 of the light, the gruff voice of the sailor-spirit " George 
 Dix " and the piping whisper of the little girl-spirit " May- 
 flower " are heard greeting us, special mention being 
 often made of favorite acquaintances by the curiously 
 matched copartners in the direction of these striking 
 seances. Dix asserts, that he was drowned at the wreck 
 of the Steamship President, which may or may not be 
 true, but the truth of which is of no consequence in view 
 of what he does and causes to be done. 
 
 If any over-zealous inquirer should wish to verify the 
 fact, he can do so by taking the trouble to examine the 
 
 shipping papers of the crew of the ill-fated steamship, 
 
 205 
 
206 MA YFLO WER 'S STOR V. 
 
 which will no doubt be found in the archives of the 
 Customs Bureau of the Treasury Department. So far as 
 I am personally concerned, Dix might as well call him- 
 self Jack Cade or General Washington. More than this, 
 as we are in pitchy darkness, I would not waste time in 
 speaking of him at all, if I thought the things he does 
 could be done by Horatio if he were free to move about 
 as much as he liked. 
 
 "Mayflower's " story is that she died of fever, a century 
 ago, while a captive among the Indians of the Maine 
 wilderness. She was the daughter of Italian immigrants, 
 who were murdered on their " clearing " in one of the 
 many Indian raids by which the early settlers on our 
 Canadian frontier were so greatly harassed. This spirit, 
 by some strange law of spiritual intercourse not satisfac- 
 torily explained to me, re-visits this world as a child of 
 twelve years, and manifests juvenile traits in all that she 
 does. She exhibits the Italian talent for improvisation, 
 hardly missing an opportunity to rattle off her verses upon 
 any subject named impromptu by any person in the 
 audience. She is also an accomplished performer on 
 various instruments, which she plays with rare power and 
 expression. Her nature, judging by her conversation and 
 acts, is simple, innocent, and kindly ; her heart is warm 
 and sympathetic, and her chief desire to afford pleasure 
 to those of a refined disposition whom the fame of these 
 circles may have attracted to the place. George Dix, on 
 the other hand, is a manly, powerful spirit, with a grip 
 like a vice, a rollicking, prankish nature, and a hoarse 
 voice, like that of one accustomed to shout in storms 
 from maintop to deck. 
 
* fiw'wimgm 
 
 
 s® 
 
 ? ~\\ 
 
 m 
 
GEORGE DIX, THE SAILOR. 209 
 
 He is a spinner of yarns, not always devoid of a coarser 
 flavor than the customs of mixed assemblages permit ; an 
 ingenious fellow, who sings, plays well on the violin, 
 whistles like a Boehm flute, and to keep things lively, is 
 ready to bear a hand at any sort of work, from the mov- 
 ing of ponderous objects and the ringing of bells, to the 
 imitation of almost any sound produced by any of the 
 mechanic arts with which he is familiar. Moreover, he 
 is one of your men of knowledge, and given to the 
 unreserved utterance of opinions ; ready at a moment's 
 notice to give you the analysis of electricity or a poetical 
 invocation to the Deity; just as, according to Sydney 
 Smith, Lord John Russell was ready to attempt the com- 
 mand of the Channel Fleet or the operation for lithotomy, 
 with equal alacrity. But George Dix, or George what- 
 soever may be his name, is a capital good fellow, who has 
 always a hearty grip for an honest man, and a heavy fist 
 for those who deserve to feel its weight. When Dr. 
 B was here, it was Dix's hand that, in Horatio's light- 
 circle, beat that worthy over the head with the guitar, 
 causing his precipitate flight and striking terror into his 
 guilty soul ; and it was he who one night in a dark-circle 
 pulled a man named Frost by the legs out of his chair to 
 the floor, with a great bump that shook us in our seats. 
 When I say " grip " I mean just that, for this spirit, in 
 addition to shaking hands with me sundry times, once 
 gave mc one of the grips of a Master Mason, which for 
 want of space, or another sufficient reason, I will not now 
 describe. Horatio, I may remark, is not a Mason. 
 
 Compliments being exchanged, a medley performance 
 begins. There is a dance of a pack of a dozen howling, 
 
210 A HURLY-BURLY. 
 
 leaping, skylarking Indians, who beat on the drums, rat- 
 tle the tambourines, blow the horns, ring the heavier 
 bells, and make a din so hideous that one easily fancies 
 himself caught in the melee of a dance of live redskins 
 about starting on the war-path. If Horatio were unbound 
 and using all four of his locomotive and prehensile mem- 
 bers, he could not imitate this dance. The creatures 
 yell, and one can hear their stamping on the floor in 
 cadence with their rude music. The dance is preceded 
 by a stillness so dead that, for any sound of life, we might 
 fancy the room empty. A slow beating of the time, a 
 few clangs of the big dinner-bell, a measured beat of the 
 tambourine, and then the time grows faster and faster, 
 until, in a moment, we are in the midst of the hurly-burly. 
 It needed no stretch of imagination to see, even in the 
 Egyptian darkness of the hall, the wild figures circling 
 round and round, for their demonstrations were of so 
 obstreperous a character as to frighten all but habitues 
 of the coolest temperaments. As an exhibition of pure 
 brute force, if such a term may be applied to the occult 
 power that produces it, this Indian dance probably is 
 unsurpassed in the annals of spiritual manifestations. 
 
 Following this episode, upon the evening in question, 
 came a sword-combat, apparently between two persons, 
 for the hacking of the two blades was, it seemed to me, 
 too violent to be done by one man operating in the dark, 
 at the risk of chopping off a finger, or mutilating a wrist. 
 The play of weapons ended in a sudden groan, and the 
 falling of a man's body on the floor at my feet. I cer- 
 tainly thought some one had found his quietus, with some 
 one's else bare bodkin, but a match being struck and a 
 
THE DARK-CIRCLE. 
 
ANOTHER TEST. 213 
 
 candle lighted, the medium was found sitting quietly in his 
 chair, with his bonds undisturbed, and no sign of perspira- 
 tion on his skin. The floor, however, was littered with 
 musical instruments and bells, and the swords of the 
 unseen combatants were lying along with them. The 
 scenes sketched by the artist in two of the cuts give an 
 idea of the appearance of the room, before the extinction 
 of the candle and upon its re-lighting. 
 
 The medium (or rather the spirit controlling him, for 
 he is supposed to be in an unconscious state, and his 
 organs used by a spirit, which may or may not be true, 
 and which I do not regard as important in the settlement 
 of our problem) then invited me to take measures to 
 satisfy myself that the phenomena were genuine. Accord- 
 ingly a gentleman present, Mr. George W. Nichols, of 
 John H. Draper & Co., auctioneers, New York City, sat 
 in Horatio Eddy's lap, while I, drawing up my chair in 
 front of him, placed my feet upon Horatio's toes and held 
 Mr. Nichols' hands, thus making it impossible that either 
 of the three should move without each of the others 
 knowing it. Moreover, Horatio could not move if he 
 wished, for his hands were tightly bound to the back of 
 his chair, and even if he could disengage them, he could 
 not move them forward to touch us, or the instruments 
 scattered about ; his slightest motion would be instantly 
 detected by the man sitting on his lap. The light was 
 again extinguished and a new performance began. 
 Hands, cold, clammy, and firm, stroked our faces, patted 
 our heads and hands, slapped me on my back and legs, 
 and Mr. Nichols on the parts of his person not leaning 
 against the medium, a pair of lips kissed my cheek, and 
 
214 WONDERFUL RESULT. 
 
 two huge hands tickled me under my arms at one time. 
 Then the accordeon, concertina, and tambourine were 
 played all about us, bells were rung, blows given on the 
 floor with the swords, and the guitar, floating through 
 the air or resting upon my head, played one or more 
 familiar airs. Meanwhile every person in the front row 
 of the audience sat with hands joined, which is the same 
 as saying, that no one, even if so disposed, could get to 
 us to do what was done. These manifestations being 
 concluded, light was called for, and we two resumed our 
 seats in the "circle." The artist's sketch shows our 
 relative positions during the test sitting. 
 
 The next thing in order was the improvisation of 
 rhymes by Mayflower. The dear child, who came and 
 laid her little hand on mine for an instant, allowed me to 
 name the subject, and then reeled off a score of limping 
 hexameters, hardly worth preservation as specimens of 
 poetry, even if I could have had them reported verbatim ; 
 but when she breathed the words through the stops of 
 the harmonicon, with exquisite modulation of the sounds, 
 her " golden stairs " and " silver shores " and " Heavenly 
 fields " seemed almost to come before us as pictures of a 
 fairy land. 
 
 Then George Dix's voice announced that " the band," 
 composed of spirits known as Electa, Honto, Santum, 
 Rosa, the Italian girl, French Mary, Mayflower, and him- 
 self, would render the piece called "The Storm at Sea." 
 I would have the reader observe that I regard the names 
 given to themselves by the various spirits, as a matter of 
 the smallest possible account. I doubt very much if 
 " Santum " or either of the other names are of genuine 
 
MRS. EMMA F. M?CORM(CK.. 
 
 GQL.0W.07T, NIR.NIGHOLS.ANOMFDIUM/N DARKCIRGLE, 
 
 A NOTED MEDIUM. 
 
A MUSICAL PERFORMANCE. 217 
 
 Indian origin, but that does not trouble me as much as to 
 know if any spirit from the other world is standing in my 
 presence. That is the question of questions; individual 
 identities are of trivial importance in comparison with 
 that. 
 
 I am no musical critic, and so will give place to a 
 competent hand to describe this remarkable performance, 
 which is given in a majority of Horatio's dark-circles. 
 Here is what Mr. Lenzberg says, and any one who has 
 attended a circle at Chittenden need not be informed of 
 the difference between this sort of music and what 
 Horatio favors us with : 
 
 Henry S. Olcott, Esq., 
 
 Dear Sir : At your request I state the following facts : 
 I am a musician by profession, and teach the art in Hartford, Ct. 
 I attended a dark-circle at the Eddy house, last evening, at which 
 various solos, duos, trios, and concerted pieces were played by some 
 mysterious performers. The solos were upon the violin, guitar, flute, 
 piccolo, concertina, and mouth harmonicon. The two most surpris- 
 ing features of the performance were : (1), the playing on a guitar 
 as it floated from one side of the room to the other, through the air, 
 a distance of at least fifteen feet (this was not a mere strumming of 
 the strings, but a delicate and artistic playing of a popular air in 
 pianissimo) ; and (2) the execution of the air of " Home, Sweet 
 Home" on the concertina. The invisible performer managed to get 
 more power, and at the same time preserve as good expression as any 
 person I have ever heard handle the instrument. I noticed the 
 same striking feature as with the guitar playing, viz. : that the 
 musical sound was prolonged, and the swells maintained, through 
 a much greater space laterally, than any mortal performer could 
 cover, and at the same time sustain the same quality 6f tone. There 
 were no sounds of footsteps, and the instrument was played so close 
 to us that I could feel the wind it made as it passed through the air. 
 I have heard Horatio Eddy, the medium of the dark-circle, play on 
 the violin, and I unhesitatingly say that his style and execution are 
 as totally different from those of the unseen soloist as possible. 
 
 The concerted pieces were an imitation of a storm at sea, by the 
 violin, with the accompaniment of the mouth harmonicon, tambour- 
 ine, concertina, triangle, guitar, and several bells. In the storm, the 
 
2l8 A PROFESSOR'S OPINIONS. 
 
 whistling of the wind was made apparently by bowing on the guitar 
 with one hand, and at the same time by sliding the other up and 
 down the fingerboard, producing harmonic notes. The heavy blow- 
 ing of the gale was imitated by a tremolo on the violin, accompanied 
 by a confusion of sounds from the other instruments. The shock of 
 waves against the ship was forcibly suggested by lifting a heavy table 
 and beating the floor with its legs. There was one sound that could 
 not possibly be imitated by any instrument, viz. : the pumping of 
 water, with the suck of the piston, the gurgle of water in the tube, 
 and its splash, as if running off on deck. 
 
 Throughout the whole entertainment, the medium sat in a chair in 
 front of the spectators, with his wrists tied together and to the back 
 of the chair, A light was struck instantly after some of the most 
 remarkable performances, and he was found in the same position 
 and tied in the same manner as at the first. The front row of spec- 
 tators kept hands joined from first to last, there was but one member 
 of his family present beside himself, who sat next but one to me, and 
 I am positively sure that she had nothing to do with what occurred. 
 Even if she and Horatio had been on the floor, it would have been 
 impossible for both together to do what was done. 
 
 The above is as careful and minute an account of the musical part 
 of last night's dark-circle as I can give, and I am ready at any time 
 to substantiate its truth by my oath in a court of justice, if called 
 upon. 
 
 I must tell you of one thing that happened, as wonderful as any- 
 thing above related. My little daughter, sitting at the other end of 
 the front row, asked the child-spirit calling Jierself Mayflower, to 
 kiss me, and immediatety I received kisses upon my mouth and 
 cheek from a pair of smooth, soft lips, which certainly were not 
 Horatio's, for he wears a heavy moustache and goatee. Moreover, 
 the room was so totally dark that no human being could have found 
 the places touched, without feeling for them with his hands, which 
 was not done. Max Lenzberg, 
 
 29 Pleasant Street, Hartford, Conn. 
 
 Chittenden, October 14th, 1874. 
 
 This is a " dark-circle " as it appears to persons 
 favored with only the usual range of senses — a place 
 of pitchy darkness, unillumined by the faintest speck 
 of light, except when little balls of phosphorescence 
 shoot hither and thither through the air, the only senses 
 ordinarily used being those of hearing and feeling. 
 
A CLAIRVOYANT S DESCRIPTION'. 219 
 
 But how different must it appear to the inner sight of 
 the clairvoyant, if we admit that their descriptions are 
 not based upon the promptings of an overwrought 
 imagination ! I was so fortunate as to meet at the 
 Eddys' a Mrs. Emma F. McCormick, an excellent " test- 
 medium," of Providence, R. I., who kindly gave me a 
 description of the dark-circle that I will try to put into 
 words, as, at least to me, an interesting novelty in spir- 
 itual literature. 
 
 When the light was extinguished, instead of the cav- 
 ernous darkness that oppressed our senses, the room 
 became to the clairvoyant suffused with a great light, 
 as though a full moon had suddenly risen upon her 
 vision. The light was steady, not flickering. The 
 walls of the apartment, as transparent as crystal, dis- 
 closed a multitude of spirits stretching upward and 
 backward — a great host that no man could number. 
 On every side they thronged — men, women, and chil- 
 dren — and gazed at the mortals below and the scene 
 that was being enacted in their hearing. They were 
 all bathed in the light that shone about them, but 
 differed in glory, one from the other. Certain of them 
 hovered over and about the medium, showering sparks 
 of light upon him more brilliant than diamonds, when- 
 ever they approached him within a certain distance. 
 From every side in the air above us, the light, concen- 
 trated into a sort of zodiacal canopy, formed a vortex, 
 like a water-spout or thunder-cloud, and then spread 
 out in showers of sparks, whose radius marked the 
 area within which all the " manifestations " occurred. 
 
 Some spirits were clothed in gauzy vapors of differing 
 
220 A MULTITUDE OF SPIRITS. 
 
 brightness and colors, some bluish, some gravish, 
 and some pure white, the several tints indicating the 
 moral status of the spirits, pure white being the highest 
 of all. Their countenances shone with a brightness 
 corresponding with that of their raiment, some like the 
 face of Moses when he descended from Sinai, being so 
 glorious that it seemed as if no mortal man could look 
 upon them. 
 
 Upon the floor of the circle room the lucide saw a 
 spirit-man with a smooth face, stern and resolute in 
 expression, who controlled and directed the perform- 
 ance. When he approached the rest fell back, as 
 though he carried the power of command in the very- 
 essence of his nature. The Indians in the dance were 
 sometimes on the floor, sometimes leaping high up in 
 the air, and one group, apart from the others, laid their 
 heads together and intently regarded some object on 
 the platform, which, from Mrs. McCormick's descrip- 
 tion of the locality, I judged to be a small spring 
 table-gong that I had procured that day, with which to 
 try certain experiments that I shall describe at the 
 proper time, but of my possession of w r hich she was not 
 aware. 
 
 Off in one corner were gathered a band of white men 
 whom she thought were pirates, who had stealthily 
 approached, and looked at the medium as if desirous 
 of getting control of him, but a number of bright 
 spirits, seeing their intention, clustered about him as 
 if to shield him from harm. The color of the light 
 around these pirates was a dark drab, and when the 
 body fell after the sword combat, previously described, 
 
SURROUNDED BY SPIRIT FRIENDS. 223 
 
 she seemed to see a dead body carried off by these com- 
 rades, who were enveloped in a dense cloud of smoke. 
 Mayflower appeared a girl of fourteen or fifteen, of a 
 fair complexion, dark hair and eyes. She looked as if she 
 were encompassed with a rainbow, and was a bright, 
 beautiful creature, but more attracted to the earth than 
 some of the others in the shining throng. The effect of 
 her music upon the other spirits was very marked. They 
 seemed to enjoy it, and their feelings were indicated by 
 a great increase in the brilliancy of the light about them. 
 
 The members of our circle of the evening were each 
 attended by his or her special friends, who showed affec- 
 tion in embraces, loving appeals, the laying of crowns 
 of flowers upon our heads, and of emblematic floral 
 devices of various kinds upon our laps. Some seemed 
 to her to kneel at the knees of their friends, and gaze up 
 into their faces with eager, hungry looks, as if they would 
 force a sense of their presence through the impenetrable 
 walls of flesh in which they were still held captive. We 
 mortals, like our spirit-friends, were also surrounded by 
 our special and peculiar spheres of light, varying in 
 brilliancy, color, and transparency, in degree with our 
 moral elevation. Along the united hands of the front 
 rank ran a chain of electricity or some other fluid, like 
 lightning, reddish-yellow in color, with bubbles of light 
 coming up here and there, and then bursting, and the 
 even flow of the stream interfered with and made to zig- 
 zag by the unequal personal magnetic force of the several 
 sitters. 
 
 In "The Storm at Sea" she saw Pix holding what 
 
 seemed a bunch of reeds, that vibrated as a stream of 
 8 
 
224 - DIX, AS A MUSICIAN. 
 
 electricity or other bright fluid ran through them. When 
 he imitated the pumping of water, it seemed as if he 
 forced two masses of electricity together, handling the 
 subtle agent as if it were a solid substance. She could 
 see him stretching out his hands and gathering it from 
 the air to condense and compact it, as one might gather 
 light snow and form the feathery flakes into a solid ball. 
 He was never idle, but passed from one employment to 
 another with indomitable perseverance, now playing the 
 violin, and anon imitating the whistling of wind or the 
 swash of water, according as the exigencies of the perform- 
 ance seemed to demand. 
 
 But, of a sudden, the beatific vision of the clairvoyant 
 is rudely terminated by the lighting of the smoky candle, 
 whose feeble gleam, struggling through the obscurity of 
 the room, replaces the noonday brightness of her opened 
 heavens. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL TESTS. 
 
 AMONG other tests that I desired to apply to Honto, 
 was one to satisfy myself whether she possessed 
 the superhuman power of self-levitation. I ac- 
 cordingly procured a small table-gong, which could be 
 rung by dropping a weight of half an ounce upon the 
 handle from the height of one inch, and took it to Chit- 
 tenden with me. One evening, when a favorable oppor- 
 tunity offered, I requested the spirit to step upon the han- 
 dle without ringing the gong, which I had previously 
 placed on the platform at a convenient point for obser- 
 vation. She assented, but before trusting herself upon 
 the frail knob examined it with characteristic caution 
 and curiosity. She finally gathered up her skirts, and, 
 placing the ball of her right foot upon it, stepped up 
 and bore her whole weight upon it without disturbing 
 the clapper. The experiment was repeated twice at my 
 request. I then asked her to step on it and cause the 
 bell to ring after she stood fairly upon the knob. She 
 did so. Her success seemed to amuse her greatly, and 
 
 by clapping her hands and in other ways, she testified 
 
 225 
 
226 HON TO AND THE GONG. 
 
 her satisfaction. She advanced her hand towards the 
 unfamiliar object with the caution that one would feel 
 in laying hold of something hot, but finally mustered 
 courage to take it up and ring it over and over again, 
 laughing and dancing like a child pleased with a new 
 toy. Her usual performance with the shawls and 
 gauzes then followed, and she strutted up and down 
 the platform with a long piece of the latter material 
 wrapped around her, as though she were a belle prom- 
 enading in a new mantilla for the public admiration. 
 Just before she was about to bid us adieu, I asked her 
 to place the gong on the railing directly in front of me 
 and ring it, so that I might distinctly see her hand 
 pressing down the knob. She bowed compliance, and 
 putting the article where I designated, retired for a 
 moment into the cabinet, perhaps to gain strength, and 
 then returning, lifted her skirt again, rang the h€i\with 
 her left foot, and ran out, kissing her hand to us. The 
 wire to which the knob of the gong is attached, is 
 about as thick as a broom straw, and I regarded the 
 experiment as of great importance, until I afterwards 
 found that, by stepping very cautiously, and bearing on 
 very gradually, I could make the knob sustain my own 
 weight. But I could not ring the bell after I stood 
 upon the knob, nor step on it as briskly as she did, 
 without causing it to sound. She was dressed, this 
 evening, in a new white costume throughout. 
 
 My reference to her retiring into the cabinet for the 
 purpose of gaining renewed strength from her medium, 
 recalls to mind an account I saw in the London Spirit- 
 ualist, some time ago, of an experience of Sir Charles 
 
WEAKNESS OF MATERIALIZED FORMS. 229 
 
 Isham, Bart , with a famous materialized spirit called 
 " Florence," who appears in the presence of Miss 
 Showers, the medium. Sir Charles was accompanied 
 to the house of Mrs. Makdougall Gregory by a lady, 
 whose description of what occurred he quotes in pre- 
 face to what he has to tell himself. Says the lady : 
 
 " Florence, who had seemed very willing to receive all the other 
 members of the circle, exclaimed in a distressed and startled tone 
 when I advanced toward her : " Not so near ! not so near ! " and 
 then, as if in pain, she added, " There is something comes from her 
 that hurts me — I feel melting away — I must go back to my medium, 
 to get more power from my medium." 
 
 These last sentences were uttered in very feeble, faltering tones, 
 and her appearance gave the impression of one who was fainting 
 away, or sinking away. The face was ghastly pale, and the eyes 
 turned upwards so that the white only was visible. She withdrew 
 behind the curtain, and I returned to my seat ; but in a few moments 
 she re-appeared, and I was shortly afterward recalled. Mr. Gregory 
 gave me a rose to present to the spirit. This time I was allowed to 
 come nearer, but my presence still seemed to excite alarm and dis- 
 tress, the spirit again exclaiming : " Not too near !" not too near !" 
 
 She accepted the rose, however, without hesitation, her long atten- 
 uated fingers slowly and feebly closing round the stalk, as though 
 she had very little muscular power. 
 
 She then said, in a very languid, plaintive tone, " I must go now. 
 I must go now." 
 
 It was the same in London with Mr. Crookes' real 
 u Katie King," who had to retire into the cabinet from 
 time to time to gather strength. 
 
 Ten spirits appeared this evening — Honto; Mrs. 
 Pritchard, an aged lady, who spoke to her son and to 
 us all in whispered tones ; Miss Maggie Brown, who 
 brought out her bouquet of flowers, as usual ; Mary 
 Staples and Clarinda Tilden, whose brother was pres- 
 ent at this, his second seance; Caroline , who held 
 
 a baby in her arms, and at my request, shifted it from 
 
230 ANOTHER LIGHT-CIRCLE. 
 
 her left arm, where it was badly seen against the dark 
 background of the curtain, to her right, where it 
 was well relieved against the white wall ; De Witt 
 Hitchcock, a young man with black moustache ; Clara 
 Arnold, a child of four years, whose father instantly 
 recognized her ; and Jonathan Morse, an old man and 
 former neighbor of the Eddys, who addressed us in a 
 heavy bass voice. 
 
 One of Horatio's light-circles followed, at which the 
 gentleman and lady whose portraits were given in the 
 illustration to a former chapter, sat beside the medium, 
 The usual manifestations occurred, hands of various 
 sizes being distinctly and often shown in various places, 
 several instruments played upon simultaneously, and 
 the heads and backs of the sitters, including the medium, 
 patted and stroked by the detached hands. Let the 
 reader refer to the picture above alluded to, which is 
 drawn to a scale, and accurately shows the respective 
 distances of the sitters from each other, and from the 
 various points about them, and he will see the impossi- 
 bility of Horatio's stroking his own face and patting 
 his own head, with his right hand thrust through the 
 opening between the two shawls, without immediately 
 betraying himself by pulling the shawl behind him off 
 the cord that sustains it. I have recently had a letter 
 from Mr. C. O. Poole, a wealthy gentleman residing at 
 Metuchin, !N\ J., about what he saw at one of these light- 
 circles, in company with myself and about thirty other 
 persons. I make the following extracts : 
 
 " I saw three hands appear at once that night. You undoubtedly 
 have it all in your note-book, and I need only say, that I am ready 
 

 
 
 SPIRIT CARD-WRITING, 
 
WRITING ON CARDS. 
 
 2 33 
 
 and willing to certify, and even swear to the facts. * * * * 
 . Among other things, I saw the guitar rise above the curtain, at least 
 three feet above Horatio's head, and saw a hand on it apparently 
 strumming the strings. This, of course, was not the medium's, for it 
 would have been a physical impossibility for it to have been there." 
 
 The usual writing of the names of deceased friends 
 of the spectators by spirit-hands, upon cards behind 
 and in front of the curtain, was varied upon this occa- 
 sion for my particular benefit. A number of blank 
 cards were called for, and handed by me to one of the 
 spirit-hands thrust through the curtain to receive them. 
 The pen and inkstand were then passed through in like 
 manner, and immediately a number of cards came 
 showering upon me, over the top of the curtain at a 
 point between the gentleman and lady sitters, and, as it 
 appeared to me, not from the direction they would start 
 from if thrown over by Horatio's liberated right hand 
 behind the curtain. The cards were all blank when I 
 handed them in, and no other cards were on the table 
 at the beginning of the seance. Moreover, each of 
 those thrown at me had something written upon it, and 
 the ink was so fresh that I laid them out separately 
 upon the railing to dry. What was written may be 
 seen by a glance at fac-similies numbers 1-6. 
 
 I expressed my satisfaction at the favor shown me, 
 and said, that the fac-similes I would give would no 
 doubt be very interesting to the public ; whereupon 
 there was a general ringing of bells, strumming of 
 instruments, and pounding upon the table, that gave a 
 sufficiently marked response to my friendly speech. The 
 next day, when the artist and I compared the cards with 
 the width of a newspaper column, I thought it would be 
 better to have the names written perpendicularly and on 
 
234 A REMARKABLE DOCUMENT. 
 
 a narrower strip ; so, without saying anything to Horatio, 
 I laid a piece of thick paper on top of a cupboard attached 
 to the wall of his bedroom, in the hope that the ever 
 watchful invisibles, knowing my wish, would favor me 
 with a corrected edition of their signs-manual. The 
 next morning I found the paper covered with signatures, 
 headed with some lines of wretched Latin, and topped 
 off with some equally bad English. I give a fac-simile 
 of this remarkable document, which may possess a cer- 
 tain interest in the eyes of many, as probably the first 
 thing of the kind that has appeared in a newspaper. 
 
 I am quite aware of the fact that, as a scientific experi- 
 ment, the procuring of the second set of names has no 
 value, for no one was present when it was written, or can 
 affirm it was not by the medium himself; so I let that 
 pass. But what 'shall be said of the cards, written in the 
 light-circle before twenty people, Which bear so marked a 
 resemblance to them ? That Horatio could write them 
 with his right hand behind a thick curtain where he 
 could not see the marks his pen was making ? That he 
 could draw a flying-bird, a sketch of a house with its 
 rear extension and detached wood-shed ? That he 
 could ornament names, written piecemeal and not with 
 a continuous pressure of the pen upon the paper, with 
 wreaths? This theory will hardly cover the prob- 
 abilities. 
 
 Immediately upon seeing this series of fac-similes 
 re-produced in the Graphic, (which was not for several 
 weeks after the originals were written, and after they had 
 been forwarded to New York), I noticed the striking 
 similarity in the shape of the letters with Horatio Eddy's 
 
FAC- SIMILE OF SPIRIT-WRITING. 235 
 
 
 tZerrf* ^/£ 
 
 aw^^^f 
 
 r-/> 
 
 'm£t 
 
 <?=*&• 
 
236 FA C- SIMILE OF SPIRIT- WRITING, CONTINUED. 
 
 
HONTO IN HIGH SPIRITS. 237 
 
 own manuscript. Public attention was also called to the 
 same fact by a correspondent of the paper. The circum- 
 stance is well calculated to excite suspicion of fraud on" 
 the part of the medium, and I must regard it as weighing 
 against him. But it is far from conclusive proof of his 
 turpitude ; for, strange as the assertion may seem, I have 
 it from credible authority that communications have 
 been written in exact fac-simile of a medium's hand- 
 writing, in his or her presence, when the writing was not 
 done by the medium. 
 
 One lady of high social position, and not a public 
 medium, informs me that on one occasion, when she was 
 sitting with her sister, alone, a communication was writ- 
 ten by an invisible power, upon a sheet of paper held by 
 her against the under side of the table-top ; the writing 
 so resembled her own that she would have been willing 
 to swear that it was written by her own hand, if it had 
 been shown her under any other circumstances. 
 
 The next evening found Honto in a very lively mood. 
 She seemed to overflow with animal spirits, running up 
 and down the platform, dancing, kicking up her feet, and 
 producing her shawls from all sorts of unexpected places. 
 Her hair to-night hung loose down her back and was 
 unusually thick. I have previously, I believe, stated 
 that it varies from time to time, not only in the style in 
 which it is worn, but also in its length and mass. This 
 evening its great length and thickness were remarked by 
 a lady spectator, whereupon Honto turned her back 
 towards us, and leaning back, let her luxuriant tresses 
 hang over the platform railing. I should judge that the 
 hair was a yard and a quarter in length, and it was as black 
 
2 3 8 
 
 HEIGHT OF THE SPIRITS. 
 
 as jet. She shook her head to straighten it out, and then 
 with a sudden movement threw the whole mass over her face 
 and held her head down so that it covered her face and 
 bust like a thick crape veil. The way she flung it 
 about proved to one even as inexperienced as myself that 
 it was no wig, for it would have been jerked off her head. 
 
 There being a number of new comers in the hall, she 
 stood beside Mr. Pritchard to show her height and 
 backed up against Mrs. Cleveland for the same purpose. 
 Finally, the light being good, she planted herself against 
 my height-scale, and Mr. Pritchard laying his cane across 
 the top of her head, we saw that he called the figures, 
 5 feet 3 inches correctly. 
 
 The squaw Bright Star and a number of other spirits 
 also suffered themselves to be measured, the figures 
 being as follows : 
 
 Name. 
 
 Honto 
 
 Bright Star.. 
 Swift Cloud. 
 Wm. Brown. 
 
 Height. 
 
 5 feet 3 inches. 
 5 feet 2 1-2 inch. 
 
 5 feet 5 inches. 
 
 6 feet I inch. 
 
 Name. 
 
 Santum 
 
 Piqua 
 
 Carrie Arnold. . 
 An old white 
 
 Height. 
 
 6 feet 2 3-4 inch. 
 5 feet 3 1-2 inch. 
 
 4 feet. 
 
 5 feet 7 inches. 
 
 On the following evening I tried an experiment that I 
 think is unprecedented in the history of scientific inquiry. 
 
 It occurred to me, that if the assertion of the spirits 
 that in materializing themselves they accreted matter 
 from the atmosphere by the operation of their own will 
 were true, and that the relative solidity of their material- 
 ization is under their control, the thing might be tested 
 by familiar mechanical appliances. I could not conceive 
 of solid matter without weight, and I had had too many 
 proofs of the materiality of the visible spirit-forms to 
 fancy them imponderable and unsubstantial. 
 
_ ^i- 
 
THE SCALE TEST. 241 
 
 I had not only heard the shock of Honto's feet upon 
 the floor when she leaped over the railing and when she 
 jumped high from the floor in some of her caperings,. 
 but, both in the dark and light circles, had shaken hands 
 with them, and been touched and playfully struck many 
 times. To my sense of touch they appeared as substan- 
 tial as any human being in the flesh, the only difference 
 being in their temperature, which was invariably lower 
 than my own, and the skin, which was ordinarily covered 
 with a clammy sweat. To put my theory to the proof, 
 I procured in Rutland one of Howe's Standard platform 
 scales, the capacity and accuracy of which are attested 
 in the following certificate : 
 
 Rutland, Vt., October 6th, 1874. 
 Henry S. Olcott, Esq., 
 
 Dear Sir: I hereby certify that the platform scale you procured 
 from me for your weighing experiments, was one of Howe's best 
 " Standards," set true and in perfect order. It will weigh from one 
 ounce to 500 pounds. Its own dead weight is no pounds. 
 
 Respectfully, L. G. Kingsley. 
 
 I caused it to be placed upon the platform, to the right 
 of the cabinet door, and just in front of the chair in 
 which Mr. Pritchard sits. Being denied the privilege of 
 sitting there myself, in consequence, as I am told, of my 
 being of so positive a nature as to affect and repel the 
 spirits (in which particular neither Mr. Pritchard nor 
 Mrs. Cleveland resemble me at all) I had to rely for my 
 experiment upon the gentleman in question. Accord- 
 ingly, I rehearsed the operation with him thoroughly, 
 until he was able, in the dark, to quickly weigh a person 
 stepping upon the platform and stopping there but a 
 moment. I supplied him with parlor-matches, and after 
 some last instructions waited the auspicious moment. 
 
242 WEIGHING HONTO. 
 
 When Honto came out she saluted us as usual, and 
 then turned and scrutinized the strange machine with 
 Indian-like hesitancy. I told her what was desired, and 
 she then stepped boldly upon the proper spot, and bent 
 forward to look at the movements of Mr. Pritchard, as 
 his hand moved the poise along the beam. The balance 
 being attained, as we could all plainly hear by the sound 
 of the beam against the pad, she stepped off and passed 
 into the cabinet. A match being struck, Mr. Pritchard 
 read the scale at 138 pounds, which caused the audience 
 no surprise, for, as the reader will observe, by reference to 
 the several pictures of Honto that appear in this volume, 
 she looks like a woman who would weigh from 135 to 145 
 pounds. But the counter-poise at the end of the beam 
 appeared to me too thin for the 100-pound weight, and 
 upon lighting a second match Mr. Pritchard found that 
 it was only the 50-pound weight, and consequently that 
 the squaw had only weighed 88 pounds. 
 
 Honto now re-appeared, and I asked her to make her- 
 self lighter. She again mounted the platform, and this 
 time it was found that she weighed but 58 pounds. The 
 experiment was repeated a third time, and her weight 
 stood the same as before — 58 pounds. The fourth time 
 the reading of the beam showed 65 pounds. Thus, 
 without any change of clothing, and all within the space 
 of ten minutes, this spirit, who weighed at the beginning 
 at least 50 pounds less than any mortal woman of her 
 size and height should weigh, reduced her materiality to 
 the extent of 30 pounds, and, after holding it there 
 several minutes, increased it 7 pounds. Of course it 
 would have been infinitely more satisfactory if I could 
 
PRITCHARD 'S AFFIDA VI T OF RESUL TS. 243 
 
 have first peeped into the dark cabinet and then managed 
 the scale myself, for in such case I would not have to 
 report, as to a portion of the facts, upon hearsay testimony ; 
 and I leave to Mr. Crookes, Mr. Wallace, and other 
 intelligent observers, more favorably conditioned than I, 
 the task of following up this novel and suggestive inquiry. 
 Mr. Pritchard is a reputable citizen of Albany, N. Y., 
 retired from business in which he accumulated a compe- 
 tency, and I give his affidavit in corroboration of the 
 facts I have narrated : 
 
 MR. PRITCHARD'S AFFIDAVIT. 
 State of Vermont, County of Rutland, ss. — Edward V. Pritchard, 
 of the City of Albany, State of New York, being duly sworn, deposes 
 and says that on the evening of September 23d instant, he attended 
 a seance or circle at the house of the Eddy family, in the town of 
 Chittenden, in the county and State aforesaid : that he was invited 
 to occupy a chair on the platform in a room known as the " circle- 
 room," where certain mysterious phenomena known as spirit mate- 
 rializations occurred ; that among other forms presenting themselves 
 and identified by persons in the audience as the shapes of deceased 
 friends and relatives, there appeared the figure of an Indian woman 
 known as " Honto," who approached so close to deponent that he 
 distinctly saw every feature of her countenance, and her entire body; 
 that he is well acquainted with William H. Eddy, and avers that 
 the said " Honto " bore no resemblance whatever to him in any par- 
 ticular. And deponent further says, that a pair of platform scales 
 being previously placed convenient to his reach, the said " Honto " 
 stood thereupon four separate times for deponent to weigh her, and 
 that, without having apparently changed her bulk, or divested her- 
 self of any portion of her dress, she weighed respectively SS pounds, 
 58 pounds, 58 pounds, and 65 pounds at the several weighings. And 
 deponent further says that, having weighed the said William H. Eddy 
 upon the same scales, he finds his weight to be 179 pounds. 
 
 E. V. Pritchard. 
 [Subscribed and sworn to before me, this 30th day of September, 
 A. D. 1875 — H. F. Baird, Justice of the Peace.] 
 
 In his famous first article in the Quarterly Journal of 
 Science for July, 1870, Mr. Crookes, in enumerating the 
 
244 CROOKES ON PROOFS. 
 
 results that he shall expect the Spiritualists to help him 
 
 to attain, before he can ask his scientific brethren to 
 
 investigate the phenomena, says : 
 
 " The Spiritualist tells of bodies weighing 50 or 100 pounds being 
 lifted up into the air without the intervention of any known force ; 
 but the scientific chemist is accustomed to use a balance which will 
 render sensible a weight so small that it would take 10,000 of them 
 to weigh one grain ; he is, therefore, justified in asking that a power, 
 professing to be guided by intelligence, which will toss a heavy body 
 up to the ceiling, shall also cause his delicately poised balance to 
 move under test conditions." 
 
 Again, he says in the same article : 
 
 " The first requisite is to be sure of facts ; then to ascertain con- 
 ditions ; next, laws. Accuracy and knowledge of detail stand fore- 
 most among the great aims of modern scientific men. No observations 
 are of much use to the student of science unless they are truthful 
 and made under test conditions ; and here I find the great mass of 
 spiritualistic evidence to fail. In a subject which, perhaps, more 
 than any other, lends itself to trickery and deception, the precautions 
 against fraud appear to have been, in most cases, totally insufficient, 
 owing, it would seem, to an erroneous idea that to ask for such safe- 
 guards was to imply a suspicion of the honesty of some one present." 
 
 I quote these sensible words, not to help me in my 
 investigations at this place, for my researches are com- 
 pleted, but to call the attention of other investigators in 
 various other portions of the country who may happen to 
 read these lines, to the true method which should guide 
 their researches. The absolute ponderosity of a materi- 
 alized spirit has at least been suggested by the weighing 
 experiments at Chittenden, and it remains only for those 
 who have access, say, to such compliant and intelligent 
 spirits as Mr. Crookes' " Katie King," or Miss Showers' 
 " Florence " and " Lenore," to make careful supplemental 
 experiments, under test conditions, and thus solve one 
 of the most important problems ever broached to the 
 scientific world. 
 
: DIX'S EXPLANATION OF THE PHENOMENA. 245 
 
 I saw Honto, on one evening (October 15th), melt 
 away as far up as her waist, just as she was ready to 
 pass into the cabinet ; once I saw a long lance, with a 
 tapering steel head and a tuft of drooping ostrich 
 plumes below it, suddenly materialized, in the hand of 
 a male [[spirit ; once, one of Honto's knitted shawls 
 instantly formed, in a pile, on the floor, before she even 
 stretched her hand towards the place to pick it up ; and 
 once a little animal, like a squirrel or a large rat, sud-. 
 denly appeared, walked about, and disappeared on the 
 platform, almost frightening poor old Mrs. Cleveland 
 out of her wits. If I ask Mr. Crookes to tell me by 
 what law these things happen, he would undoubtedly 
 answer : " Show me fifty such cases, happening under 
 test conditions, and then we will weigh these things on 
 our scales and try to discover the law." 
 
 " George Dix," the sailor-spirit, tried to enlighten me 
 upon the subject, one evening. He said that man, in 
 his earth-life, is nothing but a materialized spirit, a 
 living entity encased in a covering of flesh. To keep 
 himself and this case together, he must consume and 
 assimilate tons of the material portions of animal and 
 vegetable food. If he stops the process he becomes 
 dematerialized, or uncased, in a very brief time. On 
 the other hand, spirits can do in a moment what before 
 death it took them years to accomplish — materialize a 
 body to cover them. In the atmosphere they find ready 
 for use, an inexhaustible supply of the same matter as 
 that which exists in the animal and vegetable, only in 
 a diffused and sublimated form ; and by a supreme 
 creative effort of the will they instantly collect the 
 
246 SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES RIDICULED. 
 
 scattered particles into such shapes as they choose. 
 What shall we say to all this ? That it is silly, use- 
 less even if true, impossible, unscientific ? Lord Bacon 
 sets it down as a law unto himself, never to " reject upon 
 improbabilities until there hath passed a due examina- 
 tion ; " Benjamin Franklin, when asked in regard to 
 the use of some discovery, retorted : " What's the use 
 of a new-born baby ? " Arago, the astronomer, says 
 that " he is wanting in prudence who, outside of pure 
 mathematics, pronounces the word impossible ;" forty- 
 four years after Harvey had announced his immortal 
 discovery of the circulation of the blood, a paper was 
 read to the French Academy of Sciences to prove such 
 a thing impossible (see Owen's " Footfalls on the 
 Boundary of Another World," p. 93) ; and when Morse 
 asked Congress for an appropriation to make a prac- 
 tical test of his telegraph, the application was treated 
 with derision by some wiseacre statesmen, as being too 
 silly to be seriously entertained. Who, then, except our 
 
 Dr. B s, can in the face of such examples afford to 
 
 turn his back upon any of the phenomena presented 
 for our inspection by the class of persons called 
 mediums ? Who, I mean, that has any reputation for 
 intelligence and fairness to lose ? 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 A STARTLING PROPHECY. 
 
 ON the evening of September 26th last, a prophecy- 
 was made in a circle by the spirit " Mrs. Eaton," 
 the fulfillment of which will mark an epoch 
 in the history of modern Spiritualism. She said 
 that on Sunday, September 19th, 1875, in the Eddy 
 circle-room, spirits would materialize themselves in a 
 brightly lighted room, and deliver orations as in life, 
 with persons sitting all about them on the platform. 
 In short, by that time they would have so far overcome 
 or changed the conditions of the manifestations, that 
 the present annoying drawbacks to a perfect investiga- 
 tion of the phenomena would no longer exist. This 
 will be very satisfactory to those who may follow after 
 me, but it comes too late to be of any service to myself. 
 I have had to feel my way to a conclusion through 
 darkened rooms, and at such a physical distance from 
 the cabinet and its occupants, that I have been like a 
 blind man in a strange city. But, nevertheless, as even 
 he may fare on to his journey's end, if he but tread 
 cautiously and make sure of his foothold before ven- 
 turing to take the next step, so, in spite of all difficulties, 
 
248 A TEST SUGGESTED. 
 
 I feel as if, after moving at snail's pace for two months, 
 the goal were in sight at last. 
 
 Did ever a wiseacre " muscular contraction " theorist 
 hear a spirit speak ? Has Dr. Carpenter ever known 
 of " unconscious cerebration " imparting speech to a 
 re-incarnated ghost ? Did Sir William Hamilton ever 
 know of " Pre-conscious Activity of the Mind," or 
 "Latent Thought" covering itself with a corporeal 
 shape, and give voice to logic and rhetoric ? If not, 
 what business has either of them, to say nothing of 
 the minnows who swim beside these great whales in 
 the sea of thought, to pronounce ex cathedra judgment 
 upon phenomena of which these Chittenden marvels 
 are a part ? I have heard a spirit talk— yes, a score of 
 them, and in eight different languages, of which I under- 
 stood three, so as to know what was said on both sides, 
 while I have had the others translated to me. And on 
 the evening of October 2d I heard one make a speech 
 of five minutes. That afternoon, I had accompanied 
 the artist to the graveyard to take a sketch of Mrs. 
 Eddy's grave, and as we turned to come away I 
 remarked to him, that it would be a good test of the 
 genuineness of these Eddy manifestations, if the spirit 
 of Mrs. Eddy would appear that night and make some 
 allusion to our present visit. We agreed to keep the 
 matter to ourselves and see what might come of it. 
 
 We reached home without meeting any person, and 
 even if we had been seen, it would naturally be supposed 
 that we had merely been taking one of our usual strolls. 
 The evening came, and we met in the circle-room at the 
 regular hour. The company numbered fourteen, and 
 
A SPIRIT-ORATOR. 249 
 
 nine spirits showed themselves. The first was old 
 William Brown, who spoke a few words to his son ; 
 then a middle-aged lady named Maria Ann Clarke, 
 dressed in dark clothing; then a Mrs. Griswold, who 
 was murdered in Vermont not long ago, and who, upon 
 the occasion of a former visit to this circle-room, gave 
 all the details of the crime to an old friend of hers, a 
 Mr. Wilkins, who was present. Then forth stepped Mrs. 
 Eddy herself, and stood there silent and motionless, 
 looking at the artist and myself, who sat together. 
 She bowed and retired, and we exchanged glances as" 
 though not satisfied with the test; but immediately the 
 spirit returned, and evidently addressing her discourse 
 to us, said : " Death, where is thy sting ? Grave, where 
 is thy victory ?" I had expected her to speak in the 
 whispered accents of old Mrs. Pritchard, Maggie Brown, 
 and certain other lady-spirits, but she pitched her voice 
 so high and spoke so loud, that she might have been 
 heard in the largest auditorium in New York city. 
 
 The surprise was so great that the unexpected sound 
 thrilled me to the marrow, and I sat staring through 
 the gloom at the woman as I never did at a speaker 
 before or since. She was of a large frame, and had the 
 ample figure that is represented in the portrait pub- 
 lished with a former chapter. She wore a white waist 
 and dark skirt. Her hair was in ringlets, as I discov- 
 ered when she bent forward in profile, in the animation 
 of her discourse. She said, addressing me : " Your 
 writings are true, and be assured the Truth will prevail. 
 A thousand spirits are watching your every step, and 
 wishing you Godspeed. They see the rapid spread of 
 Truth upon earth ; and they and a countless host besides 
 
250 MRS. EDDY'S OPINIONS. 
 
 are helping it on. Go on, my friend ; we will welcome 
 you in gratitude and joy when you come to the other 
 world, for daring to tell the truth, and helping to dis- 
 seminate it. I thank you for your kindness to my chil- 
 dren, who have suffered so much and so long for the 
 good cause." It is needless to say that, barring all 
 compliments, I needed no stenographer to fix upon my 
 memory this astounding address, of which I have given 
 only a fragment. She spoke of her own sufferings and 
 trials upon earth, and denounced with bitter and 
 unstinted anger all who slander and persecute mediums, 
 especially her own children. Her remarks showed 
 very clearly the deep, and hardly eradicable impression 
 made upon her soul by the treatment she received while 
 living here, and the case offers a subject for the thought- 
 ful consideration of psychologists. 
 
 As the question of personal identity is one of para- 
 mount importance, at any rate in a case of this kind, 
 let me remark that the figure was plainly that of a 
 woman, to say nothing of the voice, which, while par- 
 taking of the strong Vermont provincial accent of the 
 whole family, was sharp and in a high key — the key of 
 a female voice. Moreover, the lady was recognized by 
 sundry of her former acquaintances in the room, who 
 greeted her ; in addition to her children, of whom, 
 there were two present. I have seen this lady several 
 times, and heard her make several speeches. In one of 
 these she said : " I am the mother of these mediums, 
 and they are the children of my body. I want this 
 understood. I want it known that this is no fraud, but 
 a real exhibition of spirit-power and spiritual existence. 
 
SPIH I T-D YNA MICS. 253 
 
 It is for that, that I come back to this scene of my 
 earthly sufferings." Again, on the evening of October 
 9th, confining her discourse to me, she referred to a 
 conversation I had had that day with the artist about 
 certain subjects for illustrations, and suggested her 
 death-bed scene, where, she said, her children in the 
 spirit-world had materialized, and stood beside their 
 surviving brothers and sisters, while her own life was 
 ebbing away. 
 
 My attention was early called to the question of the 
 dynamics of these Eddy spirit manifestations, and 
 after settling the matter of their weight, I determined 
 to attempt to throw some light upon the direct power 
 that the spirits could exert. The spring-balance 
 occurred to me, as it did to Mr. Crookes (whose excel- 
 lent pamphlet I unfortunately could not obtain until 
 some time after my own experiments were concluded), 
 
 and I accordingly procured two of 's standard 
 
 quality, of Mr. L. G. Kingsley, of Rutland, the house 
 that furnished me the platform-scales, each of a weigh- 
 ing capacity of fifty pounds. I wished to test the 
 power of the detached hands seen in Horatio's light- 
 circle, as the demonstration of power by them would 
 be a more striking and satisfactory test than in the case 
 of the fully materialized forms, into which the ques- 
 tion of personation was inevitably more or less 
 entangled. 
 
 Let the reader refer to the sketch of the light-circle, 
 in the Xllth chapter, and notice the relative positions of 
 -,„ the shawl from the railing, and also where the spirit- 
 hand is thrust through the shawl, and where the feet 
 
254 POWER OF THE SPIRIT-HAND. 
 
 of the sitters are aligned. My experiment was two- 
 fold, viz, : to ascertain how much the hands could pull 
 horizontally, and how much vertically. One of the 
 balances I fastened with a stout cord to the handrail, 
 allowing a sufficiency of cord to bring the hook of the 
 balance within easy reach of the spirit-hand ; this was 
 for the horizontal pull. The other I attached to a 
 strong ring, made for the purpose, and screwed into the 
 floor, just between the left foot of the gentleman sitter 
 and the right foot of the medium. The horizontal pull 
 was tried on the evening of September 30th. The 
 audience numbered twenty-six persons. The weather 
 outside was rainy and blustering ; temperature low ; 
 ten new arrivals that day ; and generally the conditions 
 would be regarded as unfavorable. The persons sitting 
 beside Horatio were Mr. Goodsell, of Minnesota, and 
 Mr. Wilkins, of Vermont, whose addresses can be fur- 
 nished if desired. Some instrument-playing and card- 
 writing occurred, and the guitar, tambourine, and sev- 
 eral bells were thrown over the curtain ; after which a 
 left hand was thrust out, and by the opening and clos- 
 ing of the fingers, indicated to me, standing close by, 
 that they were ready for my experiment. 
 
 I stepped upon the platform and handed the hook 
 to the hand, which grasped it, moved its fingers on and 
 off the hook to get a firm hold, as any one naturally 
 would, if he were about to exert his full force in that 
 way, and then easily, steadily, and without spasmodic action, 
 compressed the spring until the pointer ran down to the 40 
 pound mark. To prove that the force had not been 
 exhausted, the spring was held there until I reached 
 
L 
 
PULLING THE SPRING-BALANCE. 257 
 
 out my hand to take back the balance, and then was 
 allowed to recoil as gradually as it had been com- 
 pressed. Forty pounds, therefore, was the measure of 
 the horizontal pull. The hand was the left one — large, 
 broad, and white. I stood within a foot of it when it 
 pulled, and my attention was attracted to a peculiarity 
 which proved that it did not belong to Horatio's body. 
 Upon the wrist, at the root of the thumb, there were two 
 thin parallel lines of tattooing in blue India ink. Horatio 
 exclaimed, while the spirit was pulling, that it was 
 bracing itself for it by pressing the other hand 
 against his (Horatio's) back ; and he gave way to the 
 pressure and leaned slightly forward, as if this were 
 the case. If he had been pulling, he would naturally 
 have leaned back, so as to exert his force against the 
 spring. 
 
 The vertical pull was made on the evening of Octo- 
 ber 2d, when I myself sat next to Horatio in the light- 
 circle. The hand to-night was the right hand of 
 " George Dix," as I recognized by its mutilation in the 
 loss of the little finger. It has been asserted, upon the 
 barest suspicion, that this appearance of the loss of the 
 finger is deceptive, the medium having the trick of 
 bending his down so as to seem, but not in reality to 
 be missing. My answer to this is that this experiment 
 was made with this hand not more than six inches from 
 my eyes, and with so good a light in the room that I 
 could read the small figures on the dial with ease. 
 Moreover, I noticed how the skin was drawn down 
 into the cavity of the cicatrix, when the wound had 
 healed. I, furthermore, remarked that the hand was as 
 
258 THE VERTICAL PULL. 
 
 white as marble, the wrist broad and with no depression 
 where it joined the hand ; and when the fingers clutched 
 the hook to pull, the inside was partially turned toward 
 me so that I could see the blue veins half concealed 
 beneath the fat, and the projection of the tendons as 
 they contracted in the strain. The pull was steady, as 
 before, but more powerful, for the whole 50 pounds was 
 indicated by the pointer on the dial. The balance was 
 then relinquished, and in testimony of his satisfaction 
 at the result, Dix slapped me heartily on the back and 
 tickled me in the ribs. I said : " It seems as if the 
 spirit could pull 100 pounds more, if the apparatus 
 would allow of it," and assent was given by vigorous 
 pounding upon the table behind me. 
 
 Mr. Charles Goodsell's address is Howard Lake, 
 Wright Co. Minn , and he writes me as follows, about 
 the light-circle at which the above events occurred : 
 
 " If you recollect, I was sitting beside Horatio, when you first tried 
 the power of the materialized Hand which pulled the spring-balance; 
 The indicator showed that it pulled forty pounds. I know that I 
 held Horatio by the left hand, while his right clasped my wrist. I 
 am positive that it was a left hand that hooked the middle finger in. 
 to the hook of the balance, and pulled. Furthermore, two hands 
 reached out and patted me on the head and shoulders. While my 
 hands were clasping Horatio's, the iron ring was put upon his left 
 arm, and slipped down on to the back of my left hand." 
 
 If I had been in any doubt about seeing the baby- 
 hand, previously described, there was no occasion for 
 it to continue, for on this occasion the hand of a child 
 touched me in the back, and upon my mentally request- 
 ing it to show itself, was thrust out and patted me on 
 the cheek. It disappeared, but when I mentally asked 
 {hat it might be held at my lips, it came again, and 
 
THE RING TEST. 259 
 
 remained there until I could kiss it (for it was said that 
 it was the hand of one who bore to me the tenderest 
 of ties). Several other hands, large and small, women's 
 and men's, wrote cards before my eyes, each being 
 closely scrutinized as it appeared. My senses were 
 wide awake, beyond all question, for this was the first 
 opportunity given me to sit with the medium, in a 
 whole month's sojourn in the house, and I determined 
 that no detail, however slight, should be overlooked. 
 
 I was more than glad to be able to satisfy myself wholly 
 as to the famous " ring test," the philosophy of which 
 the mediums, the Spiritualists, and the spirits themselves 
 had tried to explain to me. I had seen the thing done 
 in the light a number of times, the ring dropping from 
 off Horatio's arm, as he sat before me with his hands 
 bound ; but all this was not entirely satisfactory to one 
 who was furnishing to a wide circle of readers the mate- 
 rials for the formation of belief, and whose duty was to 
 make no mistake. When the ring test was about to be 
 given, I was requested by the medium to take both his 
 hands in mine and keep a firm hold. It must be remem- 
 bered that, up to this moment, he had been grasping my 
 bared left arm with his two hands. At the beginning of 
 the seance his hands were very cold, but I noticed that 
 they gradually grew warmer, until, just before the ring- 
 test, a shiver ran through his frame, a sudden chill passed 
 into them and they became icy cold. I never felt hands 
 so cold before, except upon a corpse that had been laid 
 in ice. 
 
 Our hands crossed, my right holding his right, and his 
 left my left. The iron ring used for the experiment 
 
260 THE RING TEST CONTINUED. 
 
 was then exhibited through the shawl by another hand, so 
 that all could see it, and then dropped upon the floor at 
 my feet, striking it with a metallic sound, and rolling off 
 the platform. After all who chose had had an oppor- 
 tunity to examine it, it was passed back, and taken behind 
 the curtain by the detached hand. I then felt an arm and 
 shoulder pressing against my back, as I sat touching the 
 edge of the table behind me, and the ring, and a cold 
 hand that held it touched the bare, warm skin of my left 
 forearm. Another tremendous shock ran through the 
 medium's body, and instantly the iron ring slid down 
 from his arm over my right wrist and hung there. 
 There was just distance enough between our arms for 
 the large ring to touch both his and mine, and at the 
 moment of the shock, it seemed to me that the side of the 
 ring next to Horatio's, dissolved into a vapor, while the 
 one next to mine remained solid, for it moved away from 
 my skin directly through his arm, or else opened so as to 
 permit his to pass through its own substance, and the 
 next instant it dangled upon my wrist. 
 
 This is an astounding story, I know, but everything 
 happened just as described. I neither relaxed my hold 
 upon his hands for an instant, nor lost sight of the small- 
 est detail of the experiment. I was neither psycholo- 
 gized nor deceived, and no theory of " muscular contrac- 
 tion " is sufficient to explain or cover the facts. The 
 explanation given to me of the phenomenon by a spirit 
 is that, the medium's system being negative and the sit- 
 ter's positive, a strong current of a fluid, which, for lack 
 of a better name, they call refined electricity, is sent 
 through from the one to the other, and as It passes 
 
THE RING TEST. 
 
THE HARDENING OP COPPER. 263 
 
 through the intermediate metal, being obliged to escape 
 at the poles, it overcomes the cohesion of the particles, 
 and the solid is changed into a vapor. By suddenly 
 reversing this process, the substance is re-solidified, and 
 the ring becomes as it was before. They claim that they 
 have the same control over the cohesion of the particles 
 of our gross matter as they have over what we term grav- 
 ity ; that is, that by an exercise of their own subtle power 
 they can as readily dissolve a solid as they can lift it. 
 Let every one do as he likes with the explanation : I give 
 it as it was received. 
 
 I must say that I felt no shock whatever at any time, 
 but perhaps, being so positive as they say I am, the thing 
 worked the other way, and the medium got a charge of 
 my surplus "magnetism." 
 
 One night " Mayflower told me, as an evidence of the 
 superior knowledge of the spirits, that she herself could 
 harden and weld copper, and make a small machine that 
 would lift the house we were in, as easily as I could my 
 hat. When I asked her why she would not impart some 
 of her knowledge for the benefit of the world, her reply 
 was that, when our men of science got so far progressed 
 as to lose their empty conceit, and discover that they 
 hardly knew the alphabet of science, and were prepared 
 to learn, these and many more important discoveries 
 would reward them. We must hasten slowly on our path 
 up the Parnassian hill, learning, little by little, and as the 
 child acquires by degrees to creep, walk, and run, all that 
 goes to make up the sum of human knowledge. 
 
 There was another, and unsolicited, exhibition of spirit- 
 power this evening. In the corner of the recess behind 
 
264 CALCULATION OF POWER. 
 
 Horatio stood an extra chair, which had not been noticed 
 when the shawls were hung. During the seance this 
 chair was lifted perpendicularly twice or three times 
 directly behind Horatio's head, so as to show above the 
 top of the curtain, and it was at last surmised that they 
 desired to have it taken away ; so William Eddy, who was 
 standing near by, took it from the invisible holder. The 
 perpendicular height of the lift and weight of the chair 
 being ascertained, I allowed two seconds as the time con- 
 sumed in the raising, and then made the following calcu- 
 lation, to arrive at the measure of force exerted : 
 
 Chair weighed 8 3-4 pounds. 
 
 Perpendicular height 5 feet 5 inches. 
 
 Time (estimated) 2 seconds. 
 
 1 horse power is 33,000 pounds lifted 1 foot in 1 minute ; conse- 
 quently 
 
 8.75 x 30 x 5.16 1,354-5° 33.°°o-:- I .354-50 = 24.36, or nearly 
 one-quarter of a horse power. 
 
 Next to Honto, and old Mr. Brown, the talking spirit, 
 who usually open and close the seances, the spirit I have 
 most frequently seen is that of the mother of Mr. Prit- 
 chard, of Albany ; who has been recognized over and over 
 again, not only by him, but by his sister and her grand- 
 children, some of whom have been invited to come up 
 to the platform and receive the old lady's embraces and 
 blessings. She almost always speaks, sometimes address- 
 ing a few sentences to the audience, but usually confining 
 her remarks to her own friends. Her materialization is, 
 all in all, the most satisfactory I have ever seen, for there 
 have been so many and satisfactory opportunities to be 
 satisfied of her identity. Her son is an elderly gentle- 
 man, whose height I have verified as five feet five inches 
 scant. His mother has frequently made him stand beside 
 
XottTO MdMSR/uph> 
 
 ■HoHTOAhM^CUYELMD, 
 
 COMPARING HEIGHTS. 
 
IDIOSYNCRASIES AS TESTS. 267 
 
 her, and then called our attention to their respective 
 statures. 
 
 One night, I got Mr. Pritchard to place her back against 
 my scale, and he reported her height as just five feet ; 
 which I am satisfied is correct, as he is almost, if not 
 quite, a full head taller. On the evening of September 
 27th she seated herself in a chair by her son's side, and 
 held a long private conversation with him about a pro- 
 jected visit of her daughter, Mrs. Packard, of Albany, to 
 Chittenden. They were both absorbed in themselves, 
 and I noticed the old lady fingering her white muslin 
 apron in a peculiar manner, with both hands, pinching it 
 up little by little into folds, until she reached the bottom 
 hem, and then, smoothing it out, beginning the same 
 trick again. Upon calling Mr. Pritchard's attention to 
 this after the seance, he told me that this was an old 
 habit of his mother's in life, and would serve to identify 
 her spirit to any of her former acquaintances. She could 
 sit in this way, he said, by the hour, while interested in 
 conversation, pinching up and smoothing out her apron 
 in an absent-minded fashion; just as some persons tie 
 strings around their fingers, and others tear paper into 
 bits. 
 
 My old chemical professor used to sit in his laboratory 
 and lecture to me, keeping the thread of his thought 
 together by cutting foolscap into strips, which he would 
 proceed to roll into spills and then toss away. A certain 
 other friend of mine, the handsome young president of 
 a New York insurance company, has the trick of cutting 
 up all the envelopes on his desk, with a business-like air, 
 as though he intended to put the scraps to an important 
 
268 IMPORTANT TRIFLES. 
 
 use ; but they are finally divided into square bits and 
 litter the floor of his office. If I should see the return- 
 ing shade of either of these persons, in a room even 
 darker than the Eddy hall, I think I should recognize 
 them all the easier by the exhibition of these little habits 
 which were so closely identified in my mind with their 
 earthly selves. 
 
 These unconsidered trifles go farther towards proof of 
 the identity of the appearing spirits, than even the pro- 
 nunciation of names, or the giving of information about 
 affairs within the knowledge of the sitter. No theory of 
 probabilities appears broad enough to cover the chance 
 of William Eddy's perfecting the details of a personation 
 to such minuteness as to imitate little, personal tricks and 
 habits, too unimportant to be remarked by any but those 
 who are on the most intimate terms with the one simu- 
 lated, and, at the same time, too trivial to be suggested 
 in advance of their occurrence, even to the minds of such. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 A CHAPTER OF MARVELS. 
 
 WHILE the portions of this narrative that 
 appeared in the Daily Graphic were running 
 through the columns of that paper, I received 
 so many letters of encouragement from all parts of the 
 country, from total strangers, and so many kind things 
 were said, in so many journals of all classes, that as the 
 end of that series approached, I naturally felt a profound 
 regret at parting with my public. 
 
 This feeling is, I believe, common to all authors 
 deeply interested in their work, and on good terms 
 with their readers ; but when one is discussing so 
 serious a matter as the re-appearance and re-union of 
 those who have been parted by death, the topic enlists 
 the author's sympathies in a degree exceeding all others. 
 He feels that he has the same reason for getting at the 
 truth as any one of his readers, for one law overrules 
 all alike, and one destiny must be shared in common. 
 These numerous tokens of regard that I have received 
 have not only stimulated me in the work in hand, but 
 also afforded a marked proof of the deep interest that 
 
270 RESPONSIBILITY OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 prevails in the subject we have been discussing. I wish 
 from the bottom of my heart that I could give to the 
 bereaved ones who have appealed to me, that consola- 
 tion which they so eagerly crave ; that I could allay 
 their doubts and encourage their hopes ; but my whole 
 usefulness as an investigator would be destroyed by 
 my assuming the part of propagandist. 
 
 When I refer again to the notes upon my table — 
 from mothers imploring me for comfort in affliction 
 that seems irremediable ; from pious daughters, mourn- 
 ing the loss of parents ; from parted lovers who feel a 
 blessed assurance that the sting of death and grave's 
 victory will have passed away, if I can only demonstrate 
 the genuineness of these phenomena, a sense of the 
 deep and heavy responsibility resting upon me, to weigh 
 every apparent fact, and challenge every phenomenon, 
 until the truth be discovered, comes over me. - 
 
 Let me illustrate by giving an extract from a letter 
 from a stranger lady, which stands as the type of a whole 
 class. Observe its tender feeling, its loving anxiety of 
 tone, its reliance upon my opinion whether there is balm 
 in Gilead for the wounded heart within her breast : 
 
 " I make no apology for addressing you, save this : I am a mother 
 mourning the loss of an only child ; — hungering and thirsting for an 
 echo from the voice that always had a welcome for "Mamma;' — 
 longing for the familiar touch of little hands that have been quiet 
 for one whole year. 
 
 May I ask if you think the Eddy family would allow me to visit 
 their place — in fact, to become a boarder in their house for a week, 
 or perhaps longer ? 
 
 And do you think my little girl could really come to me there i 
 It seems to me that I could be almost happy once more, if I could 
 see, for one brief moment, my little, brown-haired, brown-eyed dar- 
 ling, just as she was before her last illness. 
 
 Dear Colonel Olcott, will you not write me how to proceed in the 
 
SPIRIT OF AN ARAB. 271 
 
 matter? I think I can speak for the whole army of mourning 
 mothers. They will, some day, ' arise and call you blessed.' " 
 
 Poor, dear lady ! what can I say to such an appeal, 
 except that my researches promise not to end in dis- 
 appointment ; that there is reason to believe that it is 
 possible for her to see her child again ; that I have seen 
 several other mothers weeping with joy, in the circle- 
 room, at the sight of their beloved ones, whom they 
 thought shut out from their sight forever, by the earth 
 that was packed above their coffin-lids. 
 
 I know I have never assumed the office of teacher, 
 and that on the contrary I have ever disclaimed being 
 anything more than a collector of facts and observer 
 of phenomena — leaving every one to form his or her 
 opinions as they choose ; but here are scores of people 
 among my correspondents, representing, no doubt, 
 hundreds of others, who rely upon my facts to do that 
 very thing. So, I must tread cautiously. 
 
 The spirits whose appearances have been thus far 
 described were either Indians, or whites of American or 
 European lineage. Up to the 2d of October, I had never 
 seen one of any other nationality, but on that evening 
 there appeared an Arab, who was an old friend of a lady 
 well known in magazine literature as "Aunt Sue." He 
 was of short stature, slight and wiry build, and his very 
 salaam to the lady, when recognized, was in marked con- 
 trast with the constrained bows of the Indians, and the 
 more or less ungraceful salutations of the whites. His 
 name is Yusef. He was dressed in a white tunic, gathered 
 at the waist by a sash, and the skirt ornamented with 
 three equidistant bands of red, of the same width. On 
 
272 ASHAMED OF HER NAME. 
 
 his head was the national fez, and in his sash was thrust 
 a weapon of some kind, which I could not see distinctly. 
 A number of questions propounded to him were answered 
 by respectful bows, and his parting obeisance was of that 
 deferential, but at the same time self-respecting, character 
 that is peculiar to the people of the Orient. 
 
 Five Indians—" Black Swan's Mother," " Bright Star," 
 "Daybreak," "White Feather" (who wore so long a 
 plume in his hair that it was bent by the door-casing as 
 he bowed his head to pass through), and " Santum " — 
 had preceded him, following Mrs. Eddy, whose address I 
 referred to in the chapter preceding this, and one, " Swift 
 Cloud," came after, so that a most favorable opportunity 
 was afforded to note the contrast between his manners 
 and deportment and those of our aborigines. The seance 
 was closed, as usual, by old Mr. Brown, who had some 
 talk with his son about a new house he was erecting, and 
 then departed. But, returning after a moment, he 
 addressed a woman present, who, it appeared, had come 
 under a false name, and whose spirit-daughter had 
 appeared to her the evening before, and asked : " Was 
 
 that child, , your daughter ? " The mother said it 
 
 was. " What is her other name ? " asked the inquisitive 
 spirit. The woman hesitated a moment, and then faltered 
 out " Smith." "Well," said he, " I hope she may never 
 feel as if she had to deny her name," and was gone. This 
 thing happened several times during my visit, so it will 
 be as well for persons who are ashamed to give their right 
 names to stay away from Chittenden. 
 
 In the dark-circle of this same evening I had another 
 volunteer exhibition of spirit-power that ought to puzzle 
 
AN " EXTRA STRONG BA TTER Y." 273 
 
 skeptics less self-complacent than our muscular-contrac- 
 tionists. My weighing-scales were standing on the plat- 
 form, at the right of the cabinet, where the experiment 
 with Honto was tried. We had had some music from 
 Mayflower and the spirit-band of unusual sweetness, and 
 the little girl — whom I never can mention without a 
 feeling of affection, so child-like and lovable is her nature 
 — had made a ludicrous failure with her rhyming improv- 
 isations upon "Music," "Pictures," and "War and 
 Peace," when Dix said that if we would all remain quiet 
 for a few minutes and the violinist would play something, 
 he would try to organize an extra strong " battery." His 
 directions were followed, and for a while no sound was 
 heard except the dolorous rasp of the instrument. Little 
 Mayflower passed along the front row and laid her guitar 
 on each one's lap, and presently we had an Indian dance 
 such as I described in a previous chapter. 
 
 Then I knew, from a rattling and banging of my plat- 
 form-scale, that something new was about to happen. It 
 was moved along the whole length of the platform with 
 such a noise that I thought to myself I would have a 
 pretty bill of damages to pay the next morning, but the 
 thought was hardly formed before George Dix, with a 
 laugh, said : " Don't worry, Mr. Olcott ; I won't hurt 
 your scales ; " and he fell to whistling and tugging at the 
 dead weight, like a jolly stevedore working among a cargo 
 of cotton. The scale reached the steps, and then went 
 bumping down to the floor of the room, and was rolled 
 to a point near the medium's chair, where it stopped. We 
 heard some one step upon the platform and the beam 
 kick against the pad, as though a heavy weight were on 
 
274 WEIGHING DIX A ND MA YFL WER. 
 
 it. George said, " I guess I'll see how much I weigh; " 
 and then, after running the poise along the notches and 
 changing one counterpoise weight for another, reported 
 163 pounds. I asked him how tall he was, and he 
 replied 5 feet 8 inches. We then heard Mayflower's 
 voice, saying, " Now weigh me, George," and his answer, 
 " All right : get on ; " and another and lighter person was 
 heard to mount the platform, and the noise of weighing, 
 with another change of counterpoise weights, was followed 
 by a call for a light. This being struck, Mr. Poole, of 
 New Jersey, and Mr. Wilkins, of Vermont, who had acted 
 as a committee on our behalf to tie Horatio, first exam- 
 ined the ropes, and found him just as he had been left, and 
 then stepped to the scale with the candle, and announced 
 the beam as marking forty pounds. But the medium, 
 speaking in the voice of a spirit known as "French 
 Mary," said, "No; it is thirty-eight pounds;" which, 
 upon a second and closer look, with the candle held 
 nearer, they found to be so. Now, if any one chooses to 
 say that the medium knew the weight because he had 
 handled it himself, it will be necessary for him to account 
 for: 
 
 1. The fact that after the weighing he was bound as 
 tightly and identically the same as he was by the com- 
 mittee before the room was darkened; and, 
 
 2. How, supposing that he could unbind and re-bind 
 himself, which I deny, he could run the poise along the 
 scale-beam in a pitchy dark room to a certain notch, 
 and be able to correct an unexpected error of the com- 
 mittee. The experiment was to me very interesting as 
 furnishing evidence either of the great force at the 
 
SEANCE IN THE RECErTION-ROOM. 
 
 275 
 
 command of the spirits, as well as their ability to see 
 in the dark, or, of some one's being able, instantly upon 
 the lighting of the candle, to convey the correct read- 
 ing of the figures to the mind of the medium. The 
 following diagram will show the route traveled by the 
 scales ; the entire distance was 33 ft. 6 inches. 
 
 The following night's seance was to my mind the 
 most satisfactory, as a test, of any held during my visit 
 
 in one respect, viz. : that it proved that neither the hall 
 up-stairs, nor the hollow platform, nor the cabinet 
 floor, nor that mysterious window, that has so troubled 
 the souls of many superficial "skeptics," had anything 
 to do with the manifestations. Just before the usual 
 hour of assembly, finding the Eddy boys in an unusually 
 tractable mood, I proposed that for once we should 
 hold our sitting in the reception-room, where we were 
 gathered about the stove. This being assented to with- 
 out hesitancy, the old shawl that hangs over the cabinet 
 door was brought down, the rough mattress, and some 
 working clothes upon the wall of a dark closet under 
 the stairs, were removed, and we were ready to begin 
 the seance. 
 
 The reader will understand the position of affairs by 
 glancing over the following ground-plan : 
 
276 
 
 THE GROUND-PLAN. 
 
 A is the sitting or reception room : B is a small dark 
 bedroom, running under the stairs that lead to the 
 
 [3 
 
 M 
 
 second story ; C is the front hall ; E, steps leading to 
 cellar ; F, William Eddy's bedroom, opening only into 
 the dining-room (G) ; H, the door from sitting-room 
 to dining-room. 
 
 The room or closet B measures 9 feet 2 inches by 5 
 feet 3 inches, with a ceiling 8 feet high — narrow quar- 
 ters for a person to sleep in, and, with the door shut, a 
 place that ought to be fatal to any pair of lungs that 
 had ever been accustomed to a breath of fresh air. 
 And yet this is where " Joe," the pugnacious but musical 
 farm-hand, whom every visitor will recollect, takes his 
 nightly repose. There is no window here, at any rate, 
 to awaken the suspicions of the wary psychologist, or 
 demand of me a covering of sealed mosquito-netting ; 
 and I conclude that if the spirits should show them- 
 selves there, the fact would go a long way towards mak- 
 ing out my case. 
 
THORO UGH EXAMINA TION. 277 
 
 Just before the shawl was hung, William insisted on 
 my coming into the den to examine it in any way I 
 pleased, but as I had already breathed its fetid atmos- 
 phere on another occasion, when I measured it and 
 sounded its walls and floor, I wished to decline. He 
 would take no denial, however, and so, lamp in hand, I 
 went in and made a general survey. There was noth- 
 ing to be seen but the bare floor and walls; and, run- 
 ning my hands over William's clothing under the 
 laughing pretext of magnetizing him, I enabled myself 
 to assure the reader that he had nothing concealed 
 about his person. The shawl-curtain was arranged 
 and we then took our seats in an arc that stretched from 
 the hall-door to that leading into the dining-room. My 
 post was in the crown of the arc, right opposite, and 
 not more than eight or nine feet from the " cabinet " 
 door. The lamp was placed on a shelf in the chimney, 
 at the south-east corner of the room and gave a very 
 fair light. 
 
 We had not long to wait, for, after the lapse of a very 
 few minutes, the shawl was lifted and out jumped Honto, 
 as lively as a squirrel. She was dressed in a light suit 
 throughout, with a scarf about her waist, and her hair 
 hanging loose down her back. She stepped to the 
 dining-room door, lifted the latch and threw it open ; then 
 began capering about in her usual way, as if she were in 
 fine spirits. Shawl after shawl she twitched from old 
 Mrs. Cleveland's and Mr. Pritchard's feet and shoulders ; 
 astonishing them as much each time as Hermann does 
 the victim he entraps into " assisting " him in his magical 
 entertainments. Then she stepped to the right of the 
 
278 WONDERFUL FEATS OF HON TO. 
 
 cabinet door, and stood just opposite me, looking intently 
 
 upon the floor, by the mop-board. There was nothing to 
 
 be seen at first but the bare planks, but, presto ! as I 
 
 watched, I suddenly saw a heap of something black, as 
 
 it might be a piece of a woman's dress or a quantity of 
 
 black netting. She stretched out her hand, and daintily 
 
 picked it up with thumb and forefinger, held it open, and 
 
 it was — one of her shawls ! Thus, within a few feet of 
 
 my nose, she exhibited the whole process of materializing 
 
 fabrics, and left me in a very pleased mood, as may be 
 
 imagined. 
 
 In the report of the London Dialectical Society on 
 
 Spiritualism, at page 328, in the testimony of Miss Anna 
 
 Blackwell before the committee, occurs the following : 
 
 Under the second head (that is to say, the command of the spirits 
 of the " fluids" and " forces" that make up the totality of planetary 
 existence) may be classed the evanescent appearance of hands, faces, 
 birds, animals, flowers, &c, which are produced by a condensation 
 out of the atmosphere, of the material elements of these pseudo- 
 formations, to which, by the application of the electro-vital force in 
 modes not yet known to us, spirits are able to impart a temporary 
 vitality, but which, having no soul, are without consciousness or last- 
 ing coherence, and dissolve into their original elements on the cessa- 
 tion of the currents that determined their formation. Lady D 
 
 assures me that a " magnificent white flower, as large as a dinner 
 plate, and with long purple stamens," suddenly appeared on a chair 
 close beside her, one evening, as she sat in her drawing-room in com- 
 pany with Mr. Home ; it remained visible to them both for about 
 two minutes, when " it melted into the air." 
 
 At page 332, in describing the apparition of a dark- 
 haired man, who passed into the solid wall in her pres- 
 ence, she adds : 
 
 Spirits say that the compact matter of our sphere of Relation, is as 
 imperceptible, for them, as the fluidic matter of their sphere is for 
 us, and that they only become cognizant of it, and able to act upon 
 it, through our minds and organisms. 
 
SUBJECT FOR THE ARTIST. - 281 
 
 Honto was followed by old Mrs. Pritchard, who was 
 dressed, as usual, in her grayish frock, and white apron 
 and kerchief, and who had some pleasant words for her 
 son. 
 
 Then appeared a charming young woman carrying a 
 child, who was recognized by her sister as Mrs. Josephine 
 Dow, late of Chittenden township. She died twenty- 
 four years ago at the r.ge of nineteen. , Her robe was 
 pure white and flowing, gathered in at the waist by a 
 string, so that the folds of the upper part lay over it after 
 a very classical fashion. Her auburn hair fell in a mass 
 over her shoulders, and as she stood there petting the 
 child, I thought I had never seen a prettier sight in all 
 my visit. She stepped back into the cabinet, whereupon 
 the voice of Mrs. Eaton said : " Mr. Olcott, this is the 
 subject we have selected for the artist's picture. The 
 spirit will now return without the child, so that Mr. Kappes 
 may take a good look at her " — and back she came, 
 alone, and stood at the right of the curtain, with her 
 right arm crossed over her waist and her left hanging by 
 her side, looking the artist full in the face. Mrs. Eaton 
 said that the spirit came back alone because it took so 
 much extra power to materialize the baby, that the spirit 
 herself was made too weak to stop out long enough to 
 give us a thorough view of her own form. Blake, the 
 Irish painter, used to see spirits invisible to all other eyes, 
 sitting to him for their portraits in his studio when he 
 was alone, but did any one ever hear before of a materi- 
 alized spirit coming for the purpose to an artist, in the 
 presence of a mixed company of fifteen persons? 
 
 After the "Madonna and Child," (as I felt like christening 
 
282 ENDORSEMENT OF OUR ENGRA VINGS. 
 
 our models,) we saw the spirit of William Packard, 
 late of Albany, and grandson of old Mrs. Pritchard, who 
 seemed so disposed to make friends with the artist that, 
 at that gentleman's request, he moved quite far along 
 the wall to the right, where his figure was thrown into 
 high relief by the light-colored paper hangings. His 
 face was round, and he wore a long black moustache. 
 His costume comprised a dark sack-coat and dark panta- 
 loons, a single-breasted vest, and white shirt with collar, 
 quite different from William's, who wore his ordinary 
 checked gingham shirt, without collar or cuffs. 
 
 We were then delighted to see the mysterious Mrs, 
 Eaton herself, whose shrill voice we had so often heard 
 issue from the cabinet up-stairs. She was a little, old, 
 wrinkled woman, in an old-fashioned muslin mob-cap 
 with a ribbon about the crown, a grayish dress, and a 
 check woolen shoulder-shawl, with its points crossed over 
 her bosom. She advanced two or three feet from the 
 curtain, and looking at me, said that she had seen our 
 picture of "The Phantom Carriage," and could suggest 
 no improvement, as it was true to nature. I expressed 
 my pleasure at seeing her in person, hearing her speak, 
 and seeing her lips move, for it was now unquestionable 
 that the voice up-stairs was hers and not the medium's. 
 She said that it was for that very purpose she had mate- 
 rialized herself, and that the spirit-band controlling these 
 manifestations had desired the change for that evening to 
 the lower room. She and they knew how anxious I was 
 for such tests as would satisfy myself and the world, of 
 the genuineness of the phenomena, and desired to further 
 my wishes ; but they, like ourselves, were subject to the 
 
ALMOST FORCED INTO BELIEF. 283 
 
 conditions around them, and where a circle was constantly 
 changing, and never the same two evenings in succession, 
 they could not do all that either I demanded or they 
 wished. 
 
 After her, came out an old, gentlemanly-looking man, 
 with a fine, intellectual head. His silver locks were 
 brushed from either ear towards his crest, as if to con- 
 ceal his baldness. He was dressed in a well-cut black 
 coat, buttoned up high, and pantaloons to match. He 
 spoke in a low voice in answer to a question from his 
 relative present, who afterwards informed me that he for- 
 merly lived at Davenport, N. Y., where he died thirty- 
 nine years ago, at the advanced age of eighty-two years. 
 
 Our next visitor was Augusta , a child of fourteen, 
 
 who was clothed in a white dress, and sweetly smiled and 
 recognized her mother, who sat next to me. 
 
 The last form to appear, was Jeremiah McCready, late 
 of Cayuga County, N. Y., whose materialization was very 
 strong and satisfactory ; and this brought to a close, a most 
 remarkable and satisfactory evening's entertainment. 
 
 I can hardly express the relief I experienced at the 
 result of this seance. Convinced as I had long been 
 of the good faith of William Eddy ; satisfied as my 
 reason was that it was a physical impossibility for the 
 man to simulate such a variety of forms — making him- 
 self at one moment a patriarch of eighty or a tottering 
 grandmother, and the next, a babe in arms or a tod- 
 dling child of three or four years; now a giant Indian 
 chief or a dancing squaw, and anon, a roving spears- 
 man of the plain of Ararat or a bronze-faced fellah from 
 the foot of the Pyramids; twisting his inflexible tongue 
 
284 PLASTERED WALLS UNAVAILING. 
 
 around the gutturals, nasals, and sibilants of numerous 
 languages, that certainly nobody outside of the Orien- 
 tal Society or some occasional Dominie Sampson had 
 mastered; convinced, I say, as I was upon all these 
 points — that ventilating window, hollow platform, and 
 seven-by-two cabinet forced themselves oftener than I 
 liked between my mental vision and the bald facts. 
 
 I confess to a feeling closely akin to astonishment 
 when Honto, the self-same copper-colored squaw, the 
 pipe-smoking, shawl-weaving, dancing, laughing 
 Honto, stepped out and confronted me. It seemed that 
 it would be next to impossible for enough of the spirit- 
 ual matter-essence to filter through that plastered wall, 
 for these cunning electro-platers to make a covering 
 withal for their filmy shapes. But there she was, sure 
 enough, in full form — with no detail of her dress lack- 
 ing, no lock of her massive suit of hair gone ; her fig- 
 ure as plump, her motions as supple, her attitudes as 
 wildly statuesque as ever before. When she had 
 passed away from our sight, I awaited the coming of 
 the next spirit with eager attention, for even then, it 
 seemed to me that it could not be possible for another 
 to materialize itself. Honto was the familiar spirit of 
 the medium, or somehow attached to and, as it were, 
 enameled upon the family, so that she could do impos- 
 sibilities that no one else from the other world could. 
 
 But, in the midst of my doubts and mistrust, there 
 came the gray-white apparition of old Mrs. Pritchard, 
 the very starch in her apron and cap seeming as if 
 it were crisp from the laundry. Then, I think, the 
 conviction formed itself that, no matter how many 
 
YusEr.^e^=3TT^ 
 
 SPIRIT-FORMS. 
 
I 
 
THE BABY-CIIOST UNMISTAKABLE. 287 
 
 "skeptics" came battering against these granitic facts, 
 no matter what array of " exposers " might blow their 
 tin-horns and penny-trumpets, that Jericho would 
 stand. Then I said to myself, that if William Eddy 
 were caught fifty times playing at materialization, with 
 " cork-soles," " ragged-blankets," and up-standing hair, 
 upon some evening when conditions were unpropitious, 
 the genuine phenomena of this one seance could not 
 be obliterated from my memory. 
 
 One of the most eminent scholars in this country, 
 and one who has made a study of legerdemain, among 
 other things, shows his ingrained skepticism of all 
 spiritualistic matters by insisting, despite all my careful 
 examination of thcwalls and floor of the cabinets up 
 and down stairs, that the figures are personations by 
 confederates. He tells me that he waits patiently for 
 the exposure that, in his opinion, will surely come; as 
 surely as it did in Philadelphia, and as, he maintains, 
 it will in London. He makes no more account of Mr. 
 Crookes', and my observations, than he did of Mr. 
 Owen's, regarding us all as equally superficial. Well, 
 I am content to be placed in the stocks, in such good 
 company. 
 
 In William's dark hole of a cabinet there was not a 
 bit of woolen, silk, or cotton rag, the size of a finger- 
 stall, nor a moccasin or string of beads ; not a wig 
 nor even a stick of black pomade, much less a wash- 
 bowl, water or towels ; and about his person, as I had 
 discovered by my innocent ruse, there were none of 
 these things; and yet there had appeared — but the 
 story is already told and I need not repeat. 
 
28S MYSTERIES. 
 
 Two features of this occasion will arrest the attention 
 of scientific minds, viz : the appearance and disappear- 
 ance of the baby, and the instantaneous formation of 
 Honto and shawl. There could be no mistake about 
 the child — no questions of rag-wrapped legs or fondled 
 pillows. The figure stood too near me and in too 
 good a light to admit of such deceptions being 
 practised. It was a living, moving child, which, 
 with its right thumb in its mouth, nestled its 
 little head in the neck of its bearer, and passed 
 its chubby left arm about her neck. For the instant 
 it was as palpable and, no doubt, as material a 
 being as any baby now lying in its mother's arms. 
 Made from the imponderable atoms floating in the 
 foul air of that chamber, it was resolved into nothing 
 in an instant of time, leaving no trace of its evanescent 
 existence behind. And the shawl ! in what spirit- 
 home, by what hearth, or under what vine-trellised 
 porch (for Mayflower's rhymes teem with allusions to 
 her house and garden, her pets and domestic compan- 
 ions) was its yarn spun, its knots tied, and its strands 
 tinted? Whose busy fingers plied the needles, or 
 whose hand guided the ghostly loom by which its 
 meshes were formed? Mystery of mysteries! What 
 CEdipus can solve the riddle ? And how long must we 
 wait for an answer? 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 SPIRITS FROM FAR CATHAY. 
 
 AMONG the spirits who frequent the Eddy home- 
 stead none is more remarkable than an aged 
 woman who chooses to call herself " The Witch 
 of the Mountain." In her personal appearance she bears 
 a marked resemblance to that massive, artistic figure of 
 the drama, the Meg Merrilles of Charlotte Cushman. 
 The face is one not easily forgotten. Old, wrinkled, and 
 decrepit as she is — the latter so much that she usually has 
 to sit in a chair while discoursing to us — her black eye 
 gleams with intelligence and a fiery resolution, and her 
 voice, although pitched in a high falsetto, has the ring of 
 command in its penetrating tones. No thick layer of fat 
 covers her attenuated frame, her arms are almost as thin 
 as a skeleton's, her cheeks hollow, her skin dark brown 
 and seemingly dry as parchment, and her elfish locks 
 of gray hang beside a face that would be marked 
 among ten thousand.* On the 31st of last August, I saw 
 William Eddy throw a dipperful of spring water, taken 
 in my presence from the horse-trough, upon a chip fire 
 
 out of doors, and it flashed up instantaneously, as though 
 IO 289 * See r age, 296 
 
290 THE "WITCH OF THE MOUNTAIN." 
 
 the embers had been fed with oil or alcohol. It was this 
 spirit who, as alleged, did the trick, using the medium as 
 her intermediary. 
 
 One day, late in October, the same experiment was 
 successfully repeated in the presence of several witnesses. 
 I am told that one evening last winter, in the presence 
 of a small circle, among whom was an Albany lawyer 
 named E. D. Stronk, she called for a jar of spring water, 
 and a few pieces of charcoal from the wood-stove, and 
 transmuted the latter into stones, after stirring them about 
 in the jar with her fingers, and making the vessel appear 
 filled with liquid fire. The witnesses and pebbles I have 
 seen, but not the experiment; so I set that aside. On 
 the evening of the same August 31st, however, I saw the 
 spirit seat herself in a chair on the platform, saw her give 
 her silky hair into the hands of Judge Bacon, of St. 
 Johnsbury, Vt., Mr. Stronk, and another, to feel; saw 
 her allow Judge Bacon to pull out a lock as a keepsake ; 
 saw the hair in his possession after the circle and on the 
 next day; and heard her speak to us concerning the 
 affairs of the next world, for the space of perhaps five 
 minutes. She has not been a frequent visitor of late, but 
 about the 23d of October it was announced that she 
 would appear immediately after the 15th of November, 
 to take charge of the circle during the winter, and 
 that she would perform a number of startling chemical 
 experiments. 
 
 The 15th fell on Sunday, and of course there was no 
 circle. The next evening, I made an engagement with a 
 hard-headed Rutland skeptic to drive up there, but he 
 failed me at the very last moment, and I could not reach 
 
A LAW YER ' S CER TIFICA TE. 291 
 
 Chittenden in time. The Witch came out, however, 
 
 according to announcement, and sat and discoursed much 
 
 as she did on the occasion previously noticed. Her 
 
 experiment of the evening consisted in the manufacture 
 
 of a number of bright masses that seemed like large 
 
 crystals, but which shone Avith great brilliancy. Mr. 
 
 Stronk, the Albany counselor, happening there on a 
 
 second visit, has given me the following memorandum : 
 
 Chittenden, November 19th, 1874. 
 This is to certify that I attended the seance at the house of the 
 Eddy brothers, on the evening of the 17th, when " The Witch of the 
 Mountain" appeared, and conversed for some minutes. She per- 
 mitted me, with two others, to go up to her and look at three sub- 
 stances that may be called spirit-jewels, which she drew from her 
 bosom and showed to me. They were unlike anything I ever beheld, 
 and indescribably beautiful. One was about as large as the bottom 
 of a tea-saucer, luminous, piano or concavo-convex, and the surface 
 divided into squares, or perhaps bosses, each of which seemed to 
 sparkle with a different color. Some were like the light of a dia- 
 mond, some rosy, some golden. If I had been allowed to handle 
 them, I might give a more accurate description. 
 
 E. D. Stronk, 
 83 Lancaster Street, Albany, N. Y. 
 
 The last time I saw the " Witch " was on the evening 
 
 of the 7th of October, when she was the first spirit to 
 
 emerge from the cabinet. She stepped out at the left 
 
 of the curtain, and made some pretty severe strictures 
 
 upon a card signed " Skeptic," professing to be written 
 
 by a neighbor of the Eddys (which, in fact, it was not), 
 
 and containing many falsehoods about them and their 
 
 doings. She then said she had a few words for me, and, 
 
 passing into the cabinet for a moment, reappeared at the 
 
 left of the curtain, which brought her directly in front 
 
 of my position. She said that she hoped that conditions 
 
 would soon be such that they (the spirits) would be able 
 
292 PERSONA L MA GNE TISM A PO WER. 
 
 to satisfy me as to experiments ; that I must be patient 
 and restrain my natural eagerness to probe things to the 
 bottom — for I rendered myself so intensely positive as to 
 throw the atmosphere of the circle into violent pertuba- 
 tion. I could not help recalling the letter of Professor 
 Tyndall in reply to the invitation of the Dialectical 
 Society's Committee to investigate the phenomena of 
 Spiritualism. He said : 
 
 " More than a year ago, Mr. Cromwell Varley, who is, I believe, 
 one of the greatest modern Spiritualists, did me the favor to pay me 
 a visit, and he then employed a comparison which, though flattering 
 to my spiritual strength, seems to mark me out as unfit for spiritual 
 investigation. He said that my presence at a seance resembled that 
 of a great magnet among a number of small ones. I throw all into 
 confusion." 
 
 The Professor evidently regarded the thing as a joke, 
 but I do not, for I think that if any one thing is self- 
 evident, it is that some persons have greater power 
 than others to affect the mental, moral, and nervous 
 conditions of those with whom they come in contact. 
 If this were not a fact, how could we explain the "per- 
 sonal magnetism" of actors, orators, lawyers, clergy- 
 men, physicians, military and naval captains, and other 
 men whose names will recur to every one who reads 
 these lines. 
 
 What is this insensible something that envelops us 
 like an inner atmosphere, and saturates all whom we 
 meet ? What subtle power made the mere touch of an 
 Apostle's robe efficacious to cure disease, and the lay- 
 ing on of a royal hand effect the same result? What 
 human lightning darting from Napoleon's eye converted 
 every soldier into a hero as it fell upon him ? What 
 magic force turned the rout of our own Shenandoah 
 
A NEW ARRIVAL. 293 
 
 army into a crushing, victory, as the fiery little captain 
 galloped along the line and swept the field with a 
 glance? What potent spell lurked in the presence of 
 Florence Nightingale, and made the wounded men at 
 Scutari better, if they could barely kiss her shadow as 
 it flitted across their beds? And what but this unseen 
 but all-potent personal magnetism, enables some fiends 
 in human shape to draw maidens, wives, and widows, 
 alike, from the path of virtue, to minister to their awful 
 appetites against their own reason, moral training, and 
 the natural promptings of a pure mind and a pre- 
 viously unsullied heart? 
 
 But I will not dwell upon a subject on which, in wider 
 limits for discussion than are now at my command, I 
 would be only too happy to expand. Suffice it to say 
 that, after a good deal of observation among the phe- 
 nomena of animal magnetism, odic force and Spiritual- 
 ism, I have come to the conclusion that the mere 
 exclusion of a person from a circle, or his location in 
 any given place in the same, is neither prima facie evi- 
 dence of intended trickery, nor that the superior 
 acumen of the individual as an investigator is dreaded. 
 
 The arrival of a Russian lady of distinguished birth 
 and rare educational and natural endowments, on 
 the 14th of October (the very day after a certain pseudo- 
 investigator, who has since made his " statement," left,) 
 was an important event in the history of the Chittenden 
 manifestations. This lady — Madame Helen P. de Bla- 
 vatsky — has led a very eventful life, traveling in most 
 of the lands of the Orient, searching for antiquities at 
 the base of the Pyramids, witnessing the mysteries of 
 
294 MADAME DE BLA VA TSKY. 
 
 Hindoo temples, and pushing with an armed escort far 
 into the interior of Africa. The adventures she has 
 encountered, the strange people she has seen, the perils 
 by sea and land she has passed through, would make 
 one of the most romantic stories ever told by a biog- 
 rapher. In the whole course of my experience, I never 
 met so interesting and, if I may say it without offence, 
 eccentric a character. 
 
 As I am about to describe some of the spirit-forms 
 that appeared to her at the Eddy homestead, and am 
 dependent upon her for a translation of most of the 
 language they spoke, it is important that I should say 
 a few words concerning her social position, by way of 
 preface. The lady has been so obliging as to comply 
 with my request to be furnished with some account of 
 herself, and cheerfully submitted to my inspection 
 documentary proofs of her identity. Among others of 
 the latter, I have seen familiar letters from Prince 
 
 Ferdinand W , a relative of the Czar, Baron M , 
 
 and other noblemen, a certified copy of her father's 
 will, and her passports, which, as well as the last named 
 document, fully attest her rank. She is the grand- 
 daughter, on the mother's side, of the great General 
 Fadeef and the Princess Helen Dolgoroukoff, grand- 
 daughter of the Prince Iakoff Dolgorouky, the best 
 friend and counselor of Peter the Great. Her grand- 
 aunt was Natalia Kirilowna, Princess Dolgorouky, 
 who was the betrothed of Peter II., and would have 
 been Empress, had not that unfortunate Prince died on 
 the eve of their intended marriage. On the father's 
 side she is related to the powerful Kourland family of 
 
ANCESTRY AND SOCIAL POSITION. 297 
 
 the Hahn-Hahns, who trace their line in unbroken 
 descent, back to the first Crusades. Her father's father 
 was Lieutenant-General of Kourland, and his mother 
 found a second husband in the Prince Nicholas Vas- 
 iltchikofF. Her father was a General on the retired 
 list, and died at an advanced age, after some sixty years 
 of service in the army and civil department. His high 
 rank is proven by the fact of his being in the " Corps 
 des Pages," to which none but the sons of the highest 
 families are admitted. Mme. de Blavatsky herself was 
 married to General de Blavatsky, Governor of Erivan, 
 in the Caucasus.* 
 
 It will be seen, therefore, from the above recital, that 
 here we have a lady of such social position, as to be 
 incapable of entering into a vulgar conspiracy with 
 any pair of tricksters, to deceive the public, while her 
 education and travels have necessarily made her 
 acquainted with many different languages. This is my 
 witness ; and now to my story. 
 
 On the 14th of October Mme. de Blavatsky reached 
 Chittenden, and attended the seance that evening. 
 Honto, as if to give the amplest opportunity for the 
 artist and myself to test the correctness of the theory 
 of " personation," that the " investigator " previously 
 
 * " Caucasus " is the general name given to the region and the 
 chain of mountains which stretch between the Black and Caspian 
 seas, the mountains forming the boundary between Asia and Europe. 
 The country is divided into the governments of Kuban, Stawropol, 
 Terek, Daghestan, Zakatol, Tiflis, Koutais, Sukum, Tchernomore 
 (Black Sea), Elizabethpol, Balsa, and Eriwan. The first five lie on 
 the European side of the mountains ; and the last seven in Asia, and 
 include Circassia, Abkasia, Mingrelia, Imerethia, Georgia, Russian 
 Armenia, and Shirvan. 
 
298 SPIRI TS FROM AFAR. 
 
 alluded to had expounded to us, stood at the right of 
 the cabinet, motioning us to observe her height, her 
 feet, the bead trimming on her dress, and then unplaited 
 her hair and shook it out over her shoulders. Santum 
 came, too, and " Wando " and " Wasso ;" and then the 
 first of the Russian lady's spirit-visitors made his 
 appearance. 
 
 He was a person of middle height, well shaped, 
 dressed in a Georgian (Caucasian) jacket, with loose 
 sleeves and long pointed oversleeves, an outer long 
 coat, baggy trousers, leggings of yellow leather, and 
 white skull-cap, or fez, with tassel. She recognized 
 him at once as Michalko Guegidze, late of Kiitais, 
 Georgia, a servant of Madame Witte, a relative, and 
 who waited upon Mme. de B in Kiitais. 
 
 He was followed by the spirit of Abraham Alsbach, 
 who spoke some sentences in German to his sister; 
 and he, in turn, by M. Zephirin Boudreau, late of Can- 
 ada, the father of a lady who accompanied Mme. de 
 Blavatsky to Chittenden, and who, of course, was 
 attending her first seance. She addressed her questions 
 to him in French, he responding by rapping with his 
 hand against the door-frame, except in one instance, 
 when he uttered the word " Oui." This gentleman 
 stood so that I saw him in profile against the white 
 wall. He had an aquiline nose, rather hollow cheeks, 
 prominent cheek-bones, and an iron-gray beard upon 
 his chin. It was a marked face, in short, of the pure 
 Gallic type, one of the kind that Vergne calls " numis- 
 matic faces," for they seem as if made expressly for 
 reproduction upon coins and medals. In stature he 
 
A SIDE SHOW. 
 
THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE WRITTEN. 301 
 
 was tall, and in figure slim, and altogether had the air 
 of a gentleman. 
 
 A little girl spirit came after him, and conversed by- 
 raps with her mother, who spoke in the German lan- 
 guage ; and this brought William's circle to a close. 
 
 After that we had a light circle — one of the kind in 
 which, as the reader will remember, certain persons 
 assert that the phenomena are all done by the hand of 
 the medium. Among other things that occurred was, 
 the writing of Mme. de Blavatsky's name upon a card, 
 by a spirit-hand, in Russian script, which it will scarcely 
 be said that Horatio could write, with both hands free. 
 Various detached hands were shown through the aper- 
 ture in the shawls, and among the number that of the 
 boy Michalko himself, which the lady recognized by 
 some peculiarity, as well as by a string of amber beads 
 wound around the wrist. Recollect that she had only 
 arrived that afternoon, had barely become acquainted 
 with the medium, had had no conversation whatever 
 with anybody about her former life, and then say how 
 this Vermont farmer could have known : 
 
 (1) Of the existence of Michalko Guegidze ; (2) that 
 he had any relations of any kind with his visitor ; (3) 
 that it is a custom among the Georgian peasants to 
 wear a string of amber beads upon their arms; and 
 then the skeptic will have to account for the possession 
 of so unusual a thing as this kind of a rosary, by a 
 family working a Green Mountain farm. 
 
 It instantly occurred to me that if this hand belonged 
 to the spirit I had seen in William's circle, the spirit 
 
 must be attached to it behind the curtain ; and that he 
 
 10* 
 
302 
 
 LEZGUINKA. 
 
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A MUSICAL TEST. 303 
 
 must be able to prove his identity by playing some 
 familiar air; so I whispered to Mme. de B., in French, 
 to ask him in his own language to play such an air 
 upon the strings of the guitar that lay upon the table 
 behind there. She first asked him, in Georgian and 
 Russian, if he were really Michalko, and certain other 
 questions ; to which he responded by sweeping the 
 guitar strings once, or thrice, as he wished to indicate 
 '•Yes or "No." 
 
 Among other things she said: " Ilaparakey sheni 
 tschccrimy " (Georgian) — " Speak to me, my good fel- 
 low." No response. " Koli te to postoutschi piatraz 
 (Russian) — " If it is you, knock five times or five 
 sweeps of the guitar. Then she said : " Poegrai 
 ' Zezguinka.' " — " Play the ' Lezguinka' " — a famous but far 
 from melodious national air. He then played the air 
 as it is found printed in this chapter ; Mme. de B. hav- 
 ing been so kind as, with the assistance of Mr. Lenzberg, 
 the Hartford music professor, to transcribe it for me. 
 
 This song being finished, after repetition upon repe- 
 tition, she asked the spirit to play another Caucasian 
 song and dance known as: "Tiris! Tiris ! Barbare." 
 She said: " Sigrai ' Gourinkou"' — "Play the Gouriel 
 dance " — and straightway it was played by the invisible 
 performer with great animation. My fellow-spectators 
 sat listening to the strange sentences of the Russian 
 lady, without understanding either what she said, the 
 nationality of the music that was being played, or, 
 until it was all over, the nature of the important 
 test that was being given ; for I believe I was the only 
 
3°4 
 
 THE GO URIEL DANCE. 
 
 person present who spoke French, and our conversa- 
 tion was confined to that language. 
 
 The instruments upon which the Georgian musicians 
 play the two airs in question, are the zourna, a curious 
 sort of bagpipe, and the ichicharda, or tschunggourou, a 
 four-stringed wooden instrument, something like an 
 ancient mandolin, if I am not mistaken — which, in the 
 matter of music and musical instruments, is the most 
 likely thing in the world. 
 
 PERSIAN-CAUCASIAN SONG. 
 
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A REMARKABLE CORROBORATION. 305 
 
 In the Lczguinka dance the movement is at first slow 
 and measured, but, little by little, the time quickens, 
 until finally, as the dancers warm to their work, they 
 abandon themselves to the excitement of the moment 
 with mad enthusiasm. The effect upon the spectator, of 
 this monotonous repetition of the slight melody there is 
 in the air, must be the reverse of agreeable. 
 
 I am fortunately, in the most unexpected manner, put 
 in possession of a conclusive bit of evidence in corrob- 
 oration of Madame de Blavatsky's story of Michalko's 
 identity as a Georgian, in two letters from a merchant in 
 Philadelphia, which, in view of their public importance, 
 I have obtained his permission to publish verbatim: 
 
 The first introduces the writer to me in the following 
 terms : 
 
 Philadelphia, 430 Walnut St., October 29th, 1874. 
 Henry S. Olcott, Chittenden, Ft., Eddy s Homestead. 
 
 Dear Sir : Though I have not the pleasure of your personal 
 acquaintance, I take ihe liberty of addressing to you a few words, 
 knowing your name from the Daily Graphic correspondence on 
 Eddy's manifestations, which I read with greatest interest. 
 
 I learn from to-day's Sun that at Eddy's, in presence of Mme. 
 Blowtskey, Russian lady, a spirit of Michalko Guegidse (very familiar 
 name to me) has materialized in Georgian dress, has spoken Georgian 
 language, danced Lezguinka, and sung Georgian National Air. 
 
 Being myself a native of Georgia, Caucasus, I read these news 
 with greatest astonishment and surprise, and being not a believer in 
 spiritualism, I do not know what to think of these manifestations. 
 
 I address to-day a letter to Mrs. Blowtskey, asking some ques- 
 tions about materialized Georgian, and if she left Eddy's please 
 forward it to her, if you know her address. 
 
 I also earnestly request your corroboration of this astonishing fact, 
 materialized Georgian, if he really came out from the cabinet in 
 Georgian dress, and in your presence. If that occurred in fact, and 
 if anybody will regard it, as usually, trickery and humbug, then I 
 will state to you this: There are in the United States no other Geor- 
 gians but three, of whom I am the one and came first to this country 
 three years ago. Two others whom I know, came over last year. I 
 
306 MR. BETA NELLY'S LETTERS. 
 
 know they are not in Vermont now and never been there before • 
 and I know they do not speak English at all. Besides us three, no 
 other man speaks Georgian language in this country, and when I 
 say this, I mean it to be true fact. Hoping you will answer this 
 letter, I remain, yours respectfully, M. C. Betanelly. 
 
 Upon receipt of this, I wrote to Mr. Betanelly, answer- 
 ing his questions, giving the names of other spirits that 
 appeared to Madame de Blavatsky, and suggesting that 
 it would interest the public, if he and his two friends 
 would unite in a certificate that they knew the persons in 
 
 life. Here is his reply : 
 
 Philadelphia, November iSth, 1874. 
 Colonel LI. S. Okoit, Rutland. Ft., 
 
 Dear Sir : I am perfectly willing to give you all information and 
 Certificates concerning materialized Georgian spirits at Eddy's. 
 Unfortunately I kept no correspondence lately with my Georgian 
 friends, but I think they are somewhere in New York or out West, 
 but I know they had no personal acquaintance of persons in Georgia 
 that materialized at Eddy's. 
 
 I knew Michalko when alive in Kiitais, and think could recollect 
 his face at Eddy's if I was there at that night. He was late serf of 
 Alex. Guegidse, a Georgian nobleman, and employed servant in Col. 
 A. F. Witte's family. Mr. Witte still lives in Kiitais, and occupies 
 a position of an engineer under Russian Government. 
 
 I also knew personally late General Faddeyeff, a tall and old Gen- 
 tleman in Tiflis, who died several years ago. He occupied one of 
 the highest rank in Tiflis under Government, and possessed the 
 Cross of St. Ann, and other merits of honor for his military and 
 civil services. 
 
 The names of Hasan-Agha and Safas-Ali-Bek are also very 
 familiar to me. 
 
 " Lezguinka " is real National Georgian play and dance. " Tiris, 
 tiris, Barbare," is Georgian air, commonly song by lower classes and 
 paysantry. " Tiris " in English means " crys," " to cry." " Bar- 
 bare is Georgian feminine name." Whole verse means : Crys, crys 
 Barbare, &c. : this is one verse of the whole and long song, which 
 it is not, I think, necessary for you to describe or translate. 
 
 I send you for curiosity, a Georgian weekly newspaper, " The 
 Times" (Droeda), published in Tiflis, Caucasus.* 
 
 ' Your obedient servant, M. C. Betanelly. 
 
 *See Page, 474- 
 
ABUNDANT TESTS. 307 
 
 Of course I never heard either of the Georgian airs 
 before, and so leave to Mr. Betanelly and his compatriots 
 in this country to speak for themselves. I can only say 
 that the music printed in this chapter, is the music I heard 
 played behind the curtain in Horatio G. Eddy's light- 
 circle on the evening of October 14th, 1874; and now 
 pass on to my next point. After stating that having 
 since made the acquaintance of Mr. Betanelly, he cor- 
 roborates all that he says in his two letters, and, since 
 they were written, has actually seen the face of a Geor- 
 gian spirit-friend at the cabinet window of a certain 
 medium. 
 
 Among the evidences of the genuineness of the phe- 
 nomena furnished us on this evening, were : The playing 
 on the guitar and tambourine, and the ringing of two 
 bells, all at once ; the playing of the guitar by Michalko, 
 with the instrument held fiat against the south wall, 
 farthest away from Horatio ; the simultaneous playing of 
 the guitar, at the extreme left, beyond Horatio, with its 
 end resting upon a chair in sight of the audience, and 
 the patting of the lady-sitter's head and shoulders by two 
 unseen hands ; and finally, the simultaneous pressure of 
 three hands upon the backs of Mr. J. M. Peebles and 
 Mrs. E. D. Stronk, the gentleman and lady who sat with 
 the medium in front of the curtain. Following, as this 
 seance did, immediately upon the pretended " exposure " 
 of the fraud of Horatio, I determined, that no chance to 
 discover trickery upon this particular evening, should be 
 neglected ; so I took Mr. Peebles into my confidence, 
 and instructed him to move his arm frequently, and turn 
 it so as to present new nerve surfaces to the pressure of 
 
308 MR. PEEBLES' CERTIFICATE. 
 
 the medium's fingers. That he followed the suggestion, 
 may be seen from the following certificate : 
 
 Colonel Olcoit : 
 
 My Dear Sir: Granted the privilege of sitting in the light 
 seance, of Horatio Eddy, to witness what are demonstrated spiritual 
 manifestations, I beg to make the following statement : 
 
 Taking a seat forward of the cabinet to the right of Mr. Eddy, he 
 tightly clasped with both his hands my bare arm. This done, music 
 was heard immediately, and simultaneously upon three different 
 instruments. 
 
 This was followed by hands tapping me on the back — on the 
 right shoulder ; and then they were projected from behind the cur- 
 tain, patting my face and pulling the beard. The hand which I 
 both saw and felt distinctly, was cold, white, and delicate, utterly 
 unlike in shape and appearance, that of Mr. Eddy's. And what is 
 more, during this and other manifestations, I purposely moved my 
 arms in different directions, to be certain that both of Mr. Eddy's 
 hands were still clasping mine. 
 
 This hand and arm appearing the second time, there was upon the 
 wrist amber-colored beads. These I not only saw, but I felt and 
 heard them jingle. Instruments of music were played upon at a 
 distance beyond the medium's reach, even if his hands had been at 
 liberty. And yet, during all of these marvels, if I can trust my 
 senses in connection with reason and consciousness, his hands were 
 not for a moment unclasped from mine — neither were the nerves of 
 sensation so benumbed as to prevent, in the slightest, the usual 
 acuteness of feeling. 
 
 This materialized hand also smoothed my hair, rung bells, and 
 wrote upon cards before the eyes of both the circle and myself. And 
 I am as certain it was not Horatio Eddy's hand, as I am it was not 
 mine. 
 
 J. M. Peebles. 
 
 Mr. Pebbles is well known as an eloquent speaker and 
 scholarly writer upon Spiritualism, but that does not 
 imply that he is either a fool or a knave. He was recently 
 United States Consul at Trebizond, and is an Orientalist, 
 a Fellow of the Anthropological Society of London, 
 and Corresponding Member of the Royal Asiatic Society 
 of India. In Part II of this work, will be found an 
 
SPIRITS DISSOLVING. 309 
 
 interesting paper by him, describing some remarkable 
 magical performances he witnessed in the East. 
 
 It was upon the following evening that I saw Honto 
 suddenly sink away up to her waist, just as she was about 
 to pass into the cabinet. Three persons — two gentlemen 
 
 of Philadelphia, Mr. E and Mr. M , and one 
 
 lady, Miss E. S of Albany — have written to me con- 
 cerning a similar phenomenon which happened in their 
 presence, upon one evening, before my visit, and subse- 
 quently to the occurrences certified to in a former chapter. 
 I was in hopes that they would have consented to unite 
 in a certificate to the fact, but all manifest great reluctance 
 to having their names associated with Spiritualism in a 
 public manner. I content myself, therefore, with saying 
 that they are each of excellent character. 
 
 It is a curious affair, this progressive disintegration of 
 the "materialized " spirit-body! If we can conceive of 
 the body being made, by a supreme effort of the spirit's 
 will, from the invisible atoms of the atmosphere, there is 
 nothing difficult in the theory that, by a like effort, it 
 could be destroyed. In fact, it is to be noticed that 
 most ghost-stories relate how the apparition suddenly 
 evaporates, or dissolves back into its original unsubstan- 
 tial elements. Thus the Phantom Carriage, of Chapter 
 Vth, was seen to fade away in the moonlight, and so faded 
 the White Lady of Avenel before the eyes of the affrighted 
 sacristan. But here we have Honto sinking suddenly 
 into the solid floor, waist-deep ; and then, with what 
 might be called the stump of a body, sliding behind the 
 cabinet curtain. The same thing happened to Katie 
 King in the course of Mr. Crookes' experiments. He 
 
310 HASSAN AGHA'S PEBBLES. 
 
 mentions having seen her sink away until nothing 
 remained but her head, which appeared to rest upon 
 the carpet of the room. 
 
 Mrs. Bolles' mother fell to pieces, as though every 
 atom of her form had suddenly lost its coherence with 
 every other atom. Why is this ? How can the discrep- 
 ancy be explained ? Has one spirit so superior a power 
 over its materialized body that it can only be dissolved 
 in progressive ascension, from heels to head, while another 
 falls into fragments, at the instant it loses its hold on a 
 single one of the molecules of which its evanescent shape 
 is composed ? Ah ! that is one of the problems that 
 await the philosophical chemist. 
 
 The next evening, a new spirit, " Hassan Agha," came 
 to Madame de Blavatsky. He was a wealthy merchant 
 of Tiflis whom she knew well. He had a sneaking fancy 
 for the Black Art, as well as our own mediums, and 
 sometimes obliged his acquaintance by divining for them 
 with a set of conjuring stones, procured from Arabia at a 
 great price. His method was to throw them upon the 
 floor, beside his mat, and then, by the way they fell into 
 groups, prophesy the future and read the past for his 
 wondering visitors. He claimed that the stones possessed 
 some magic property by which and the muttering of 
 certain Arabic sentences, the inner sight of the conjuror 
 was opened, and all things hidden became clear. 
 Hassan's dress, was a long yellowish coat, Turkish 
 trousers, a bishmet, or vest and a black Astrachan cap, 
 pappaha, covered with the national bashlik, or hood, with 
 its long tasseled ends thrown over each shoulder. 
 
 Another of her visitors was an old woman dressed in 
 
MAR YAH, THE NURSE. 313 
 
 the costume of the Russian peasant-women, of whom the 
 artist has given a sketch. She was an old nurse in the 
 family, and took charge of both Madame de B. and her 
 sister in early childhood. She advanced towards the 
 lady, and, after making a respectful salutation, said some- 
 thing to her in her native tongue, of which I could 
 distinguish the words " Michalko " and " Barishnia" 
 which latter means " Miss." 
 
 Hassan Agha returned the next evening, and not only 
 staid out longer than before, but, after retiring, reappeared 
 at our side of the curtain so as to give the artist a good 
 look at him. He spoke to Madame de B. this evening, 
 and, listening with close attention, I heard the words 
 Peshkesh, Bolshoi djelha, and Backsheesh, for the spelling 
 and translation of which I am indebted to the lady. The 
 first means " a present," the second and third " a big 
 fortune," and the last, which is only too familiar to every 
 traveler in the East, "Money." "Is it forme?" asked 
 Madame de B. " Abou " (for you) answered the old man, 
 with a crracious salaam. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 GERMANS, KHOURDS, AND HUNGARIANS. 
 
 WE had a dark-circle after William's materializing 
 circle, in which the child " Mayflower " demon- 
 strated her ability to see in the dark, as well as 
 we do in the light. Little Lena Lenzberg had brought 
 in her pocket a hair-switch which she wanted the spirit 
 to braid. After the circle was formed and the light 
 extinguished, she laid it in her lap, but had said nothing 
 of her desire until suddenly Mayflower exclaimed : " Oh ! 
 Lena, what have you got there ? You want me to braid 
 that hair; don't you? I will ; but why didn't you bring 
 the other two there are at home ? " She crossed the 
 room, took the hair, braided it, and returned it to Lena's 
 lap. She then called her to step out on the floor and see 
 which was the taller of the two. Lena obeyed, and stood 
 
 back to back with the spirit, with the following result : 
 
 ( 
 Chittenden, October 19th, 1S74. 
 Mr. Olcott: 
 
 My name is Lena Lenzberg, and I am thirteen years old. I was 
 at the dark-circle last night. Mayflower called me out on the floor 
 and we measured heights. We were exactly the same. I felt her 
 back and head against mine, and she kissed me after we measured. 
 ( Lena Lenzkerg. 
 
 3M 
 
BACK TO BACK WITH CORA. 
 
 315 
 
 Lena is rather a short girl for her age, as will be inferred 
 
 by reading the certificate of a dear little girl from Utica, 
 
 two years younger, with whom Mayflower tried the same 
 
 experiment : 
 
 Chittenden, October 21st, 1874. 
 With my father's permission, I state that my name is Cora Cecilia 
 Ehle, and I am almost eleven years old. Papa says I measure 4 feet 
 6 1-8 inches, Last night, Mayflower called me " Birdie," and asked 
 me to measure my height with her. We stood with our backs 
 together, and I was about two inches taller than her. This was in 
 a dark-circle. Cora C. Ehle. 
 
 " George Dix," of whose whistling accomplishments I 
 have previously spoken, gave us a splendid display this 
 evening. He asked Mr. Lenzberg to play on his flute 
 " The Mocking Bird " and " Home, Sweet Home " very 
 softly, which that gentleman did ; and Dix whistled a 
 tremolo accompaniment that equaled anything of the 
 kind I ever heard. It was quite as good as the bird-calls, 
 runs, and trills of the old cigar-seller at Evans' Supper 
 Rooms, in London, whom so many hundreds of American 
 travelers must recollect. 
 
 The next day was cloudy and cold, and a storm was 
 clearly brewing among the mountain ranges. It was what 
 might be called a fair temperature for manifestations, and 
 we had some good ones. Thirty-one persons attended 
 the circle, and nine different spirits appeared. Hontowas 
 dressed in a white dress, with black or dark overskirt ; 
 and she seemed determined that we should see more than 
 this, for at one time she came within two feet of Mr. 
 Lenzberg, and lifting her skirt to her knees, displayed a 
 good deal of a pair of white stockings. She had hand- 
 some moccasins on her feet. 
 
 I noticed very closely, this evening, the vast difference 
 
316 A SPIRIT SPEAKS GERMAN. 
 
 between the size, height, bust, and appearance of the 
 young lady spirit, Maggie Brown, and William Eddy. I 
 do not know what called my attention to her so particu- 
 larly, but I caught her figure and face in profile in a 
 passably good light, and these details attracted my notice. 
 When she held up her bouquet, as usual, for her brother 
 to look at, her round, white, womanly arm was brought 
 out into full view. 
 
 Abraham Alsbach's sister said to him : " Willst du uns 
 zu haus besuchen ? " to which he replied so distinctly that 
 I caught the sound of the words : " Ja • ich gehe mit dir 
 nach haus morgen" — which I undertake to say is more 
 German than both of the brothers together can speak. 
 
 Horatio was in one of his ugly moods, this evening, 
 which was, perhaps, attributable in part to a sound 
 berating that old Mr. Brown, the talking spirit, gave him, 
 and everybody in general, at the close of William's circle. 
 I have read of " Katie King's " scolding visitors at the 
 London seances, but if anybody wants to hear the thing 
 in perfection and pretty constantly, let him stop at Chit- 
 tenden a fortnight, and hear this venerable party express 
 his views and intentions ! 
 
 I wanted Horatio to allow me to lay my hands lightly 
 outside the shawl, over his hands, after they had been 
 placed upon the bare arm of the gentleman-sitter at his 
 left, but he would not do it, but called up a lady present 
 to hold them there, saying that " one person's word 
 was as good as another's." This was only one of 
 many such rebuffs, so I let it pass, noting it as a suspicious 
 circumstance, and waiting for the time when he should 
 volunteer to give me this convincing proof of his good 
 
THE GARABALDIAX'S II AND. 
 
 317 
 
 behavior. But the time never came. Perhaps, because 
 I had not sufficiently shown my good-feeling and fair- 
 ness ; perhaps, — , well, who knows ? 
 
 It is fair that I should say that the lady reported that 
 he had not removed either hand from the gentleman's 
 arm. Moreover, I must add that Mme. de Blavatsky, 
 who sat at the gentleman's right, declared that she felt 
 one hand on her right shoulder (the one farthest from the 
 medium), at the same instant that the gentleman reported 
 one on each of his shoulders. The guitar, two bells, and 
 tambourine were played simultaneously, and hands of 
 Various sizes were shown. Among these, one was too 
 peculiar to be passed over. It was a left hand, and upon 
 the lower bone of the thumb a bony excrescence was 
 growing, which Mme. de Blavatsky recognized, and said 
 was caused by a gun-shot wound in one of Garibaldi's 
 battles. The hand grasped a broken sword that had been 
 lying upon a table behind the shawl. It was the hand of 
 
 '/^^^ 
 
 a Hungarian officer, an old friend of the Madame's, 
 named Dgiano Nallus, and a fac-simile of his own signa- 
 ture, written by one of his hands upon a card, is here given. 
 
318 FA C- SIMILES. 
 
 Another signature, written for the same lady, was that 
 of her husband's brother, J. de Blavatsky, a fac-simile of 
 which is also given. She asked in the Georgian language 
 
 if the spirits would not again play for her the Gouriel 
 air, '' Tiris ! Tiris ! Barbare ; " but instead, a famous 
 Garibaldian march, called " Viva l'ltalia " was played 
 upon the guitar. This seemed to me a more satisfactory 
 test than the compliance with her request would have 
 afforded, for it was just barely possible that Horatio 
 might have inferred that she was repeating her demand 
 of the former light-circle, and, having caught the air, 
 would have rendered it for her ; whereas, in this case, 
 entirely different music, connected with entirely different 
 associations, but eminently appropriate to the appearance 
 of Dgiano Nallus, the Garibaldian soldier, was unexpect- 
 edly rendered. 
 
 It is upon such tests as these, spontaneously given, that 
 I have based my confidence in these Eddy boys. Granted 
 that they may be able to tie and untie themselves, " float " 
 instruments, ring bells, and fool intelligent persons into 
 the belief that their hands are on their arms when, in fact, 
 they are in quite a different place ; admitting all this, I 
 exclude from my case every individual phenomenon that 
 can be explained upon the hypothesis of trickery, and 
 still, as I conceive, have an abundance remaining to prove 
 
 L 
 
A MENTAL TEST. 319 
 
 their mediumship. If the " grand expositor " had shown 
 the public a theory broad enough to cover all the appear- 
 ances in William's circle, — the talking children ; the 
 wrinkled old men and women ; the young girls in the 
 suppleness, freshness, and plumpness of youth, with their 
 white, bare arms, shapely hands, and well-set heads ; the 
 diversities in height and bulk, so great as to be inexpli- 
 cable to any frequenter of the coulisses upon the theory 
 of personation ; the speaking of various languages, some 
 the most unusually known in this country ; the changing 
 of complexions from white to copper, and black to white; 
 the faces without a sign of beard, while the medium wears 
 a black moustache all the while ; these, and, further, the 
 exceptional tests given in Horatio's light-circle, and the 
 music-playing and other marvels of his dark-circle, I 
 would have only to confess that my two months' labor 
 had been wasted, and I was one more of the fools of the 
 senses. This is just what I have waited for, and what I 
 have not discovered. Until I do, I stand upon my story 
 of phenomena observed, with the confidence of one 
 whose house is built upon a sure foundation. 
 
 Mme. de Blavatsky and I, without pre-concert, applied 
 the same test to one spirit that appeared one evening. He 
 was a great, stout Indian chief, in a red hunting-shirt, leg- 
 gins, and moccasins, and the lady mentally asked him 
 to approach very near to where she sat, at the parlor- 
 organ, close against the railing. He did so, and gazing 
 into her face, at not more than two or three feet distance, 
 lifted up one of his feet and showed her the moccasin 
 upon it. He retired into the cabinet, but I fixed my wjll 
 
 intently upon him, and desired that he should return 
 11 
 
320 SAFAR A LI'S SPIRIT. 
 
 once more and show himself to me also. He raised the 
 curtain the next instant, came out, folded his arms, looked 
 at me, lifted his foot and placed it on top of the railing 
 with a most defiant air, and then disappeared again from 
 our view. 
 
 The last spirit to show himself on that evening, was 
 one of the most impressive figures of the whole four 
 hundred or so I have seen. In 185 1 Mme. de Blavatsky 
 was passing the summer at Daratschi-Tchag, an 
 Armenian place of summer resort in the plain of Mount 
 Arrarat. The name means " The Valley of Flow T ers." 
 Her husband, being Vice-Governor of Erivan, had 
 a body-guard of some fifty Khourd warriors, among 
 whom one of the strongest and bravest, named Safar 
 Ali Bek, Ibrahim Bek Ogli, (the son of Ibrahim) was 
 detailed as the lady's personal escort. He rode after 
 her everywhere on her daily equestrian excursions, and 
 delighted to display his unusual skill as a cavalier. This 
 very man walked out of William Eddy's cabinet in the 
 form of a materialized spirit, dressed to the minutest 
 detail, as when she last saw him in Asia. Madame 
 was playing the parlor-organ that evening, and as the 
 back of the instrument was close against the platform, 
 it brought her to within three or four feet of each of 
 the spirits as they stood outside of the cabinet. 
 There could be no mistaking her old Khourdish 
 "Nouker," and her recognition of him was immediate. 
 He came out empty-handed; but just as I thought he 
 was about to retire he bent forward, as if picking a 
 handful of mould from the ground, made a gesture of 
 scattering it, and pressed his hand to his bosom, — a 
 

 ^ == =^^--^ f=5AFAR-ALI-BEK A KONDE WARgjOfo 
 A STRANGE VISITOR. 
 
THE "NOUA'ER'S" SPEAK. 323 
 
 gesture familiar only to the tribes of Kurdistan ; then, 
 he suddenly held in his right hand the most curious- 
 looking weapon I ever saw. It was a spear with a 
 staff that might have been a dozen feet in length (perhaps 
 more, for the butt seemed to extend into the cabinet,) 
 and a long steel head of peculiar shape, the base of 
 which was surrounded with a ring of ostrich plumes. 
 This weapon, Mme. de B. tells me, is always carried 
 by the Khourdish horsemen, who acquire a wonderful 
 dexterity in handling it. One instant before, his hand 
 was empty ; the next, he grasps this spear, with its 
 glittering steel barb and its wavy plumes ! Whence 
 came it ? From Chittenden township, master skeptic ? 
 
 On the evening of the 20th, every one of the nine 
 spirits appearing spoke to us ; an unprecedented circum- 
 stance in my experience at Chittenden. Mrs. Pritchard's 
 voice was clearer than usual ; Maggie Brown managed to 
 whisper a little ; Mrs. Eddy spoke in very loud and clear 
 tones, and advancing to the venerable and excellent Mr. 
 Ralph, of Utica, N. Y., who sat upon the platform, knelt 
 to him, kissed his hands and thanked him for his friendli- 
 ness to her children — the scene being quite pathetic ; 
 old Mrs. Cleveland's mother, a very wrinkled, white- 
 haired dame, came to her daughter for the first time; a 
 little child of a Mr. Whittier, of Massachusetts, a gi"rl of 
 about four years, I should judge, said "Papa ! dear papa !" 
 to him ; and all seemed to conspire to assist the colloquial 
 powers of the visitors from beyond the dark river. 
 
 I never saw Honto in better spirits than upon that 
 evening. It seemed as if she could not do enough to 
 rid herself of her superabundant vitality. Laying a 
 
324 If ONTO' S LEAP. 
 
 hand upon the banister-rail, she leaped clear over it to 
 the room floor ; and then resting a toe upon the platform 
 edge, she leaped back again as lightly as an athlete. 
 Running down the platform, and descending the steps, 
 she caught Horatio by the hand and dragged him, 
 unwilling, after her, up to the platform ; then she caught 
 at old Mrs. Cleveland, and placed her beside him ; and 
 then, off she went to the other end, for the amiable Mr. 
 Ralph, and pulled him towards the others ; and then all 
 four, with joined hands, had a merry dance together. 
 
 If any fancy that Honto's face is but a mask covering 
 William's features, let them consult Mr. Ralph, who has 
 had opportunity enough to scan it, dear knows ! Her 
 affection for Aunty Cleveland seemed to overflow its 
 bounds, for when the motherly old soul said how happy 
 she felt to see her, the squaw threw her arms (this time 
 materialized) about her and gave her a hearty hug. She 
 materialized two of her shawls at once, pulling one after 
 another out of the wall, and handing the two together to 
 the unseen person within the cabinet. Then she made 
 us a dozen more of all sizes ; some of which appearing 
 only as large as a towel, grew longer and wider as she 
 walked back from Mrs. Cleveland, who held one end, 
 until she had spun out of the air a fabric at least 16 feet 
 in length and a yard and a half in width. 
 
 Old Mrs. Pritchard not only spoke to her son, but 
 when that gentleman introduced her to Mr. Ralph, who 
 sat beside him, she shook hands with him and addressed 
 him some words of compliment. She did not even 
 neglect Mrs. Cleveland, but called her over and greeted 
 her also. With the three persons standing about her, she 
 
MRS. PRITCIIARD 'S SPIRIT. 325 
 
 then turned to the audience, and told us that that was her 
 son standing there, and she wanted us to know the fact. 
 Mr. Ralph and Mrs. Cleveland, both of whom scrutinized 
 her closely, told me that her face was that of an old lady, 
 \\:ry much wrinkled, and that her son bears a strong 
 resemblance to her. 
 
 They saw her lips move when she spoke, noticed the 
 color of her eyes, the details of her dress and figure, and 
 felt her hands bedewed with a cold sweat. These facts 
 are noteworthy, inasmuch as William's moustache was 
 well-grown at this time, and his face was rough with a 
 week's beard stubble. 
 
 Old Mr. Brown came out strong that evening, and laid 
 about him with his tongue in fine style, giving "reporters" 
 in general, and myself, by innuendo, in particular, a 
 famous dressing down. Mrs. Eaton, also, who had usually 
 been quite friendly towards me, was viperish to a degree. 
 I gave it up as a bad job, after that, concluding that it 
 was useless to make any further attempts to put myself on 
 good terms with the band directing these materializations, 
 for the harder I tried to be kind to the mediums, and 
 deferential and conciliatory to the spirits, the worse off 
 I was. The Shaker Elder Evans seems to give a pretty 
 clear idea of the situation, in his long communication to 
 myself that will be found elsewhere. My influence must 
 have stirred up the materializes, like a steamer's paddles 
 the water. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE DEAD ALIVE. 
 
 THE moon shone brightly the next evening, and 
 everything out of doors favored a good circle. 
 The air was clear and cool ; every undulation 
 of the mountain crests came out sharply against the 
 sapphire sky in the glorious light ; the little stream in the 
 distance threaded the meadows, like silver set in emer- 
 alds ; and, far up the valley, a brilliant aurora-borealis 
 shot its trembling spears of ruddy gold to the zenith, 
 from behind the mountain barrier that shut in the horizon. 
 A more peaceful scene I never viewed, and I turned from 
 it with deep sadness to enter the gloomy circle-room, 
 where, judging from what had been going on the few pre- 
 ceding nights, I had every reason to expect demonstra- 
 tions of ill-temper and antagonism on the part of both 
 the family and their spirit-guides. 
 
 Ten spirits appeared to us, among them a lady — a cer- 
 tain Mrs. Fullmer, who had only died the Friday previous. 
 The relative to whom she came sat beside me, and was 
 dreadfully agitated at the thought that one whom she had 
 seen buried only a few days before, should so soon have 
 
 326 
 
A BOGUS LORD BYRON. 327 
 
 "burst the cerements of the grave." Poor woman ! she 
 was as little in reality a believer in the immortality of the 
 soul, as most of her fellow church-members ; who pour 
 their tears upon the coffin, instead of lifting the eyes of 
 their faith upward, to where the disembodied spirit hangs 
 lovingly over them. 
 
 Among the forms to appear, was a man with a long 
 black beard and dark complexion, wearing a turban, a 
 red jacket embroidered with black braid, and inside vest 
 of a flowered pattern, baggy trousers of dark blue or 
 black, a sash around his waist, made of a twisted shawl, 
 and black shoes. A person present, who had been cod- 
 dled into the belief that he should see Lord Byron at the 
 Eddys', asked the spirit if he were not the great poet, 
 and was answered in the affirmative : the which circum- 
 stance made me recall a certain passage at Proverbs 
 xxvi, 5. The vanity, ignorance, and credulity of mortal 
 spiritualists has been the cause of what Mr. Bagenal Daly 
 would call " a moighty sight of illigant lying," on the 
 part of the spirits. It so consoles your costermonger to 
 think he can " chaff " the shade of Charlemagne ! 
 
 This spirit (who, I may mention in passing, reappeared 
 at my mental request after he had retired,) had hardly 
 been gone an instant, when there came a light-complex- 
 ioned, white-haired old man, a Mr. Jonathan Bartlett, 
 taller than the diakka " Lord Byron," and dressed through- 
 out in an American costume. He must have been wait- 
 ing for his predecessor to retire, for he almost passed him 
 at the door ; and the circumstance was noted in my book 
 as another proof in favor of the apparitions being sorae> 
 thing else than personations by the medium. 
 
328 AN AFRICAN JUGGLER 'S SPIRIT. 
 
 ■• Michalko " visited us again the next evening, and 
 spoke to Mme. de Blavatsky in the Georgian tongue ; 
 and, after two or three more forms had shown themselves, 
 I saw one of the most singular creatures that ever excited 
 the wonder of a "circle." He was a tall, spare negro, 
 black as ink, and dressed in a curious costume, two 
 features of which were very conspicuous. Upon his 
 woolly head he had a coiffure, that would make a sensa- 
 tion on Broadway. I could see an ornamented fillet, or 
 hand, and on top of his head four horns with "bent tips, 
 something like those of the chamois or some varieties of 
 African antelope, such as the oryx. The points of the 
 two in front were turned backward, and those of the two 
 in rear, forward, while a brass or gilt ball hung suspended 
 from each tip. 
 
 Mme. de Blavatsky did not recognize him at first, 
 but he stepped forward a pace or two, and she then saw 
 before her the chief of a party of African jugglers whom 
 she encountered once in Upper Egypt, at a celebration 
 of the feast of " The Ramazan." The magical per- 
 formances of his party upon that occasion, make one 
 of the most incredible stories in the history of either 
 Magic or Spiritualism, and one feat deserves place in 
 such a book of weird experiences as this. Madame says 
 that, in full sight of a multitude, comprising several hun- 
 dred Europeans and many thousand Egyptians and Afri- 
 cans, the juggler came out on a bare space of ground, 
 leading a small boy, stark-naked, by the hand, and carry^ 
 ing a huge roll of tape that might be tAvelve or eighteen 
 inches wide. 
 
 After certain ceremonies, he whirled the roll about 
 
JU6GUR FROM CLHTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 'ACvHSixs-JEU 
 
 SPIRIT FROM AFRICA. 
 
L 
 
JUGGLERY IN UPPER EGYPT. 331 
 
 his head several times, and then flung it straight up into 
 the air. Instead of falling back to earth after it had 
 ascended a short distance, it kept on upward, unwind- 
 ing and unwinding interminably from the stick, until it 
 grew to be a mere speck, and finally passed out of sight. 
 The juggler drove the pointed end of the stick into the 
 ground, and then beckoned the boy to approach. Point- 
 ing upward, and talking in a strange jargon, he seemed 
 to be ordering the little fellow to ascend the self-suspended 
 tape, which by this time stood straight and stiff, as if it 
 were a board whose end rested against some solid sup- 
 port up in mid-air. The boy bowed compliance, and 
 began climbing, using his hands and feet as little " All 
 Right " does when climbing Satsuma's balance-pole. The 
 boy went higher and higher until he, too, seemed to pass 
 into the clouds and disappear. 
 
 The juggler waited five or ten minutes, and then, 
 pretending to be impatient, shouted up to his assistant as 
 if to order him down. No answer was heard, and no boy 
 appeared ; so, finally, as if carried away with rage, the 
 juggler thrust a naked sword into his breech-clout (the 
 only garment upon his person), and climbed after the 
 boy. Up and up and up, hand over hand, and step by 
 step, he ascended, until the straining eyes of the multi- 
 tude saw him no more. There was a moment's pause, 
 and then a wild shriek came down from the sky, and a 
 bleeding arm, as if freshly cut from the boy's body, fell 
 with a horrid thud upon the ground. Then came another, 
 then the two legs, one after the other, then the dismem- 
 bered trunk, and, last of all, the ghastly head, every 
 part streaming with gore and covering the ground. 
 
332 THE TAPE-CLIMBER. 
 
 A second lad now stepped forward, and, gathering 
 the mutilated fragments of his comrade into a heap, 
 threw a dirty cloth over them and retired. Presently 
 the juggler was seen descending as slowly and cau- 
 tiously as he had ascended. He reached the ground at 
 last, with his naked sword all dripping with blood. 
 Paying no attention to the remains of his supposed 
 victim, he went to rewinding his tape upon his stick, 
 his audience meanwhile breaking out into cries of 
 impatience and execration. When the tape was all 
 rewound, he wiped his sword, and then, deliberately 
 stepping to the bloody heap, lifted off the ragged quilt, 
 and up rose the little tape-climber as hearty as ever, and 
 bowed and smiled upon the amazed throng as though 
 dismemberment were an after-breakfast pastime to 
 which he had been accustomed from infancy. 
 
 I have seen it stated in the papers that the late 
 William H. Seward, ex-Secretary of State, witnessed a 
 similar feat in India, while on his tour around the 
 world. He saw a man climb a bare pole sixty feet 
 high, standing in open air, and when he reached the 
 top he mysteriously disappeared. After a while his 
 feet reappeared, then his legs and body, and then he 
 came down. It is a great pity that some of our enter- 
 prising publishers could not induce Mme. de Blavatsky 
 to write 6ut her memoirs, for they abound in such 
 marvels as these. And, be it remembered, the great 
 negro whom I saw at Chittenden was the chief of the 
 very party who performed the marvel of diablerie in 
 Egypt. 
 
 But, whoever he was, or wherever he hails from, is it 
 
A WONDERFUL STORY. $$$ 
 
 possible that William Eddy could get himself up, in 
 his two-by-seven feet, pitch-dark cabinet, to look like 
 this strange creature, without lamp, paint, looking- 
 glass, soap, or water, and only a small black fringed 
 shawl and piece of plaid horse-blanket, taken from 
 serving their purpose as curtains, to be used as 
 costume ? 
 
 There are curious stories afloat in Egypt about the 
 powers of the chiefs of this horned juggler's tribe, one 
 
 of which, recited to me by Madame de B , is well 
 
 worth preserving, as a match to the Grecian mytholog- 
 ical fable of Europa. 
 
 One of them had the reputation of being the 
 greatest sorcerer ever known in that country. By 
 conjurations he could evoke the shape of any person 
 he chose, and make it do his bidding. He was aided 
 by demons, or evil spirits of mighty power, who came 
 and went at his beck and call, as unquestioningly as 
 the genii of the ring and lamp did for the audacious 
 Aladdin. 
 
 One day he strolled into the village of Mis-Massia, 
 near the river Nile; and, going from house to house, 
 offered his services to do any little odd-job of diablerie 
 that might be required. In Mis-Massia was a pretty 
 maiden, named Esma, who had been abandoned by her 
 sweetheart, Zanoni-Bey, and who asked the conjurer 
 if he could not force the faithless one back to her feet. 
 He said he could, if she could only procure for him a 
 lock of Zanoni's hair, be it never so small an one. Not 
 being able to approach the renegade herself, she sent 
 her little brother, a lad about twelve years of age, on 
 
334 MAIDEN AND LOVER. 
 
 the difficult mission. But he, finding his efforts likely 
 to prove unsuccessful, stepped into a butcher's yard, 
 and cut some hairs from the tail of a black bull that 
 was waiting his turn to be slaughtered, and brought 
 them to his sister, as taken from Zanoni's head. The 
 deception was rendered possible from the fact that the 
 lover's hair was very coarse and black, as much Arab 
 hair is. 
 
 Esma, with fear and trembling, delivered the lock to 
 the magician, who began his mystic rites in her pres- 
 ence ; thus, at least, showing us that he was no genuine 
 clairvoyant, since he did not discover the cheat. He 
 made his passes and genuflections, sprinkled his pow- 
 ders, and muttered his Arabic charms, until the subser- 
 vient powers of darkness manifested their presence by 
 shaking the house to its foundations, and the air seemed 
 full of strange and fearful whisperings. After a few 
 more passes, the sorcerer exclaimed the talismanic 
 words which signify that the spell is formed, and 
 handing the lock of hair to the affrighted girl, received 
 his fee, and departed. 
 
 Impatiently she waited for night to come, and restore 
 the truant Zanoni to her caresses. She decked herself 
 in her bravest attire, and watched the unprophetic 
 hours pass by, until the midnight call of the muezzin 
 from the neighboring mosque betokened the fateful 
 moment. Suddenly there was a noise like that of dis- 
 tant thunder, the earth shook, the house-door flew open, 
 and there, upon the threshold, she beheld a tall, black 
 figure with horns. Taking it for the conjurer himself, 
 she overwhelmed him with reproaches for his perfidy. 
 
THE INFA TUA TED B ULL. 335 
 
 but in another moment the dark object disclosed itself 
 as the empty skin of a slaughtered bull, standing erect 
 upon its hind legs. She shrieked in mortal fright, but 
 in vain ; the monster, as if carried away with a mad 
 frenzy, precipitated itself upon her, and wrapped her 
 in an embrace of death. Her cries were heard and her 
 struggles witnessed by an old negro servant woman, 
 the only other tenant of the house, who stood awhile, 
 rooted to the floor with terror, and then fell in a dead 
 swoon. 
 
 Upon recovering her senses, the morning light shone 
 dimly into the apartment, and there lay the poor Esma, 
 dead and cold, enveloped in the bull's hide. The sor- 
 cerer had rehabilitated the spirit of the beast, and 
 endowed it with a mad affection for the love-lorn 
 damsel. 
 
 This story was told to Mme. de B by Elias 
 
 Effendi, a dignitary residing at Mis-Massia, who assured 
 her that it was generally believed throughout all that 
 section of country. The adventure occurred only about 
 
 a year before Mme. de B 's visit, and the hide of 
 
 this African Europa's four-legged swain was exhibited 
 to her in attestation of the truth of the narrative. 
 
 Mr. Epes Sargent writes me from Boston, under date 
 
 of December 3d, 1874, as follows: 
 
 " By the way, that curious story of the feat witnessed by Mme. de 
 Blavatsky, where the African juggler throws up a ladder or rope into 
 the sky, is paralleled in a story, which you may find in a record book 
 by George Lunt (Editor of the Boston Courier), giving reminiscences 
 of Newburyport, and other places in New England. He relates an 
 incident of the same kind (in some respects) as occurring somewhere 
 in these parts, many years ago." 
 
 I regret to say, that I have not been able to obtain 
 
3$6 THE MA GIC PAP YR US. 
 
 access to Mr. Lunt's book in time to use the extract 
 referred to by Mr. Sargent. I cannot imagine how 
 such a thing could have occurred in this country, unless 
 some vagrant Egyptian or Hindoo magician might 
 have wandered this way. 
 
 In his voluminous work entitled "Des rapports de 
 l'Homme avec le Demon," (Paris Ed., 1863, Vol. I, p. 
 15,) M. Bizouard tells us, upon the authority of Cha- 
 bas' " Paphyrus Magique Harris," that at the highest 
 antiquity, the arts of magic reached such a pass that 
 spirits manifested themselves in full form, bronze 
 statues were made to move and nod, living persons 
 were made out of menh (an unfamiliar word. Perhaps 
 it means an image of wax or clay, perhaps a plant. 
 The tiny mandragora demon, tiot larger than a small 
 doll, who attends upon the Egyptian sorcerers, is 
 formed out of a withered plant, at a certain hour of the 
 night, after certain incantations) ; and the bodies of liv- 
 ing persons were taken possession of by evil spirits, 
 who used them as habitations as long as they chose. 
 This obsession is identical with what prevailed in the 
 time of Christ, and the expulsion of these demons by 
 him, finds its prototype in the same power exercised, 
 according to these ancient Egyptian papyri, by the 
 good divinity Khons. 
 
 The ancient religion of Egypt, which was character- 
 ized by magical practices, such as the one related by 
 Madame Blavatsky, fell into decay in the time of Caesar, 
 in consequence of the impoverishment of the country 
 by a succession of internal and external wars, and the 
 falling off in those revenues which had supported 
 
RAISING THE DEAD IN ROME. 337 
 
 the priesthood and their temples. Salverte tells us (in 
 his "Sciences Occultes: ou Essai sur la Magie," Paris, 
 l8 5 6 , 3d Ed., p. 165-6) that many priests of the inferior 
 orders, driven by necessity, betook themselves to Rome, 
 where, in the public squares, for money, they declared 
 prophecies, healed diseases, and evoked the apparitions 
 of the dead. 
 
 Modern Egyptians distinguish two kinds of Magic, 
 which they term Er-Roo'hha'-nee and Es-See'miya : the 
 former is spiritual magic, which is believed to effect its 
 wonders by the agency of angels and genii, and by the 
 mysterious virtues of certain names of God, and other 
 supernatural means; the latter is natural and deceptive 
 magic; which, it is believed by the less credulous 
 among the Egyptians, finds its chief agents in certain 
 perfumes and drugs, which affect the vision and imag- 
 ination. (See Lane's " Modern Egyptians," 2 Vols., 
 London, 1837; which forms part of the series known as 
 * The Library of Entertaining Knowledge.") The true 
 ijiagic is divided into 'il'wee (or high), and soo/'lee (or 
 *Ow), the former being a science founded upon the 
 Agency of God, of His angels, and good genii, and on 
 Sther lawful mysteries; to be always employed for good 
 purposes, and only attained and practiced by men of 
 probity, who by tradition, or from books, learn the 
 Barnes of those superhuman agents, and invocations 
 ivhich insure compliance with their desires. The 
 tpof'lee, or bad magic, is believed to depend upon the 
 Agency of the devil and evil spirits, and unbelieving 
 £enii ; and to be used for bad purposes, by bad men. 
 *To this branch," says our author, "belongs the science 
 
338 THE RING AND LAMP. 
 
 called, by the Arabs, es-Sehhr j which is a term they 
 give to wicked enchantment." 
 
 The tape and pole climbing tricks above narrated, as 
 well as the enchantment by which poor Esma was 
 deprived of life, in the suffocating embrace of the 
 bull's hide, would, of course, be ascribed to the latter 
 branch of the occult science. Perhaps, the wise men of 
 America might embrace all of William Eddy's appari- 
 tions within the same category ! This, however, would 
 not be the case in the land of the Pharaohs, for the 
 calling up of the dead is included in the mysteries 
 practised by the professors of 'il'wee. It appears to 
 make some difference what sort of spirits are evoked, 
 and for what purpose. The thousand and one stories 
 of Scheherezade are filled with descriptions of all these 
 kinds of magic, and the wonderful things done by the 
 exercise of the power of mortals over genii ; who of 
 old were subject to the dominion of Solomon, and in 
 later times are the slaves of whomsoever may wear the 
 mystic ring, or rub the rusty lamp. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 SPIRITUALISM AGAINST RATIONALISM. 
 
 IT is remarked by Lecky, in his " History of the rise 
 and influence of the spirit of Rationalism in Europe," 
 that, after the angry passions aroused by the Reforma- 
 tion had subsided, and a more judicial spirit was 
 awakened, the advanced minds of the Eighteenth Century 
 began to view the religious question with calmer judg- 
 ment, and more philosophical impartiality. Says he : 
 
 " It was observed that every great change of belief had been pre- 
 ceded by a great change in the intellectual condition of Europe, that 
 the success of any opinion depended much less upon the force of its 
 arguments, or upon the ability of its advocates, than upon the pre- 
 disposition of society to receive it, and that that predisposition 
 resulted from the intellectual type of the age. As men advance 
 from an imperfect to a higher civilization, they gradually sublimate 
 and refine their creed. Their imaginations insensibly detach them- 
 selves from those grosser conceptions and doctrines that were formerly 
 most powerful, and they sooner or later reduce all their opinions into 
 conformity with the moral and intellectual standards which the new 
 civilization produces. Thus, long before the Reformation, the 
 tendencies of the Reformation were manifest. The revival of Greek 
 learning, the development of art, the reaction against the schoolmen, 
 had raised society to an elevation in which a more refined and less 
 oppressive creed was absolutely essential to its well-being. 
 
 " Luther and Calvin only represented the prevailing wants, and 
 embodied them in a definite form. The pressure of the general 
 
340 HOW OPINIONS ARE FORMED. 
 
 intellectual influences of the time determines the predispositions 
 which ultimately regulate the details of belief ; and though all men 
 do not yield to that pressure with the same facility, all large bodies 
 are at last controlled." 
 
 Speaking of the method by which persons usually 
 
 arrive at opinions, in the investigation of new facts, Mr. 
 
 Lecky observes : 
 
 " Nothing can be more certain to an attentive observer, than that 
 the great majority even of those who reason much about their 
 opinions, have arrived at their conclusions by a process quite distinct 
 from reasoning. They may be perfectly unconscious of the fact, but 
 the ascendancy of old associations is upon them, and, in the over- 
 whelming majority of cases, men of the most various creeds conclude 
 their investigations by simply acquiescing in the opinions they have 
 been taught. They insensibly judge all questions by a mental 
 standard derived from education ; they proportion their attention 
 and sympathies to the degree in which the facts and arguments 
 presented to them support their foregone conclusions ; and thus 
 speedily convince themselves that the arguments in behalf of their 
 hereditary opinions are irresistibly cogent, and the arguments against 
 them exceedingly absurd." 
 
 I have quoted as much as this from this learned 
 author, because it seems to define so satisfactorily the 
 cause of the prevalent interest in Spiritualism, (especi- 
 ally in the phase presented by the Eddy mediums), as 
 well as the behavior of the churchmen, the philosophi- 
 cal chemists, and the lay materialists, towards believers 
 in the phenomena. 
 
 The progress of Rationalism in Europe weakened 
 the influence of the Church, challenged the sources of 
 religious belief, and fostered scientific research. These 
 causes, at work for two centuries, have brought about 
 a crisis which threatens so violent a reaction from our 
 old subserviency to ecclesiastical rule, that every 
 vestige of spirituality is likely to be swept out of our 
 nature, and a bald Rationalism to take its place. The 
 
POPULAR ANXIETY. 341 
 
 masses, viewing the conflict, seeing the impending 
 crisis, and bewildered at the progress of events that no 
 power of theirs seems potent to control, turn with 
 deep anxiety to the spiritual manifestations, as offer- 
 ing the sole chance for successful resistance to the 
 encroachments of remorseless scientific spirit upon the 
 instinctive longing for and belief in immortality. 
 
 Finally, the scientists, setting their opinions by the 
 rule of precedent and education, impatiently listen to 
 the narration of facts, which, contravening their pre- 
 conceived notions as to the laws of gravity, of chemical 
 combination, of the conservation and correlation of 
 force, they regard as in the highest degree absurd. 
 Lecky himself says, that at present, nearly all educated 
 men receive an account of a miracle taking place in 
 their own day, " With an absolute and even derisive 
 incredulity, which dispenses with all examination of the 
 evidence. Although they may be entirely unable to 
 give a satisfactory explanation of some phenomena 
 that have taken place, they never on that account 
 dream of ascribing them to supernatural agency, such 
 an hypothesis being, as they believe, altogether beyond 
 the range of reasonable discussion." Exactly: but 
 what these gentlemen do not consider, and what makes 
 them appear so ridiculous, in the eyes of those who are 
 brave enough to investigate these curious facts in the 
 judicial spirit, is that these phenomena that have taken 
 place are at the same time, not supernatural, not 
 miracles, and not trickery. They happen according to 
 law as does everything else, and if the class of men 
 referred to by Lecky do not bestir themselves, the 
 
342 THE CHARMED CIRCLE. 
 
 credit of discovering that law, and defining its forms 
 of manifestation, will fall to persons outside the charmed 
 circle of the Academy. 
 
 A reasonable and philosophical spiritualistic belief 
 is as far removed from the superstition of the Seven- 
 teenth and Eighteenth Centuries, as it is from the 
 degrading materialism of the last quarter of the Nine- 
 teenth, which blots God out of the Universe, strips the 
 soul of its aspirations for a higher existence beyond 
 the grave, and bounds the life of man by the same 
 limits as those within which the beast of the field, the 
 bird of the air, or the fish of the sea has its being. 
 I sought at Chittenden the material for the formation 
 of such a belief, and if I cannot say that the Eddy 
 manifestations warrant it, it is only because the things 
 I saw, while apparently inexplicable upon any other 
 than the spiritualistic hypothesis, were not happening 
 under test conditions, and hence would not satisfy the 
 judicial mind. 
 
 In looking back through the history of Magic, Sor- 
 cery, and Witchcraft, in all ages, it appears to me that 
 most of the confusion in regard to the real nature of 
 the so-called diabolical power, comes from two causes : 
 (i) The belief in a personal Devil, powerful enough to 
 cause rebellion in Heaven, divert the allegiance of a 
 large portion of the angelic host, and be constantly at 
 war with God ; thus affording to the superstitious a 
 satisfactory ideal of an individualized Evil Power, 
 which could send its demons to torment, and which 
 could be invoked by spells, and propitiated by incanta- 
 tions and sacrifices. (2) The empiricism of scientific 
 
BLACK MAGIC, AND WHITE. 343 
 
 men, who either, (as in the XVIIth and XVIIIth Cen- 
 turies,) yield to the prevalent anthropomorphic belief, 
 or (as at present) coolly deny the occult origin of 
 phenomena they are too indolent and cowardly to 
 examine. 
 
 The verification of these surprising facts of modern 
 Spiritualism, clearly does not necessitate a return to the 
 ignorant exorcisms of earlier times in Europe, or in- 
 dorsement of the practices of modern "Black Magic," in 
 the countries of the Orient. It would doubtless result 
 in showing that, by the establishment of favoring con- 
 ditions about us, we might enjoy intercourse with the 
 highest spirits, as well as receive the visits of the most 
 tricky, ignorant, or malicious. The Eddy materializa- 
 tions, if proven true, while unquestionably the highest 
 form of physical phenomena, cannot be regarded as 
 comparable to the inspirational state, in which knowl- 
 edge, wisdom, and thoughts of beauty pour into the 
 receptive mind of the seer, from the sources of inspira- 
 tion, and take the form of prophecy and poetry. Such 
 men were Isaiah, Ezekiel, David, Jeremiah, and the 
 other great Hebrews of those days ; and the difference 
 between them and the Witch of Endor was just as 
 great, and no other, than that between — say Swedenborg 
 and William Eddy ; — the one, the type of the greatest 
 possible spiritual ecstacy, the other, that of the most 
 powerful physical mediumship. 
 
 I have been struck with the different light in which 
 the Eddy manifestations, and, in fact, the whole range 
 of these modern phenomena, are regarded by the Prot- 
 estant and Roman Catholic bodies. The former begin 
 
344 THE TWO CHURCHES. 
 
 by denying their occurrence, except as examples of 
 legerdemain ; but, when confronted with some pecu- 
 liarly striking phenomenon, either attribute it to an 
 occult force, under control of the medium, or circle, or, 
 as a last refuge, find a satisfactory explanation in the 
 direct interposition of the Devil. 
 
 The Church of Rome, on the other hand, admits the 
 facts without argument, and if they happen outside her 
 own jurisdiction, passes them to the credit of Satan. I 
 rode in the cars recently with a very intelligent young 
 priest, who took this ground and cited to me passage 
 after passage from the Fathers in its support. He even 
 narrated, with evident interest, his own experience with 
 Planchette, in company with several other priests and 
 sundry laymen, upon which occasion the " little plank " 
 answered mental questions framed in his mind in Latin, 
 in the same language, and wrote Spanish, Greek, Latin, 
 French, German, and Italian for various persons in the 
 room ; the medium being an ignorant Irish girl. This, 
 to his mind, was a clear case of diabolism, and, instead 
 of testing the phenomena with scales or electrode, he 
 was for resorting to "bell, book and candle," and a 
 copious use of holy-water. 
 
 This theory of diabolism, might commend itself to a 
 mind predisposed to anthropomorphic belief, if the mani- 
 festations were always of either a malicious or lying 
 character ; or mere exhibitions of impish power to startle 
 or amuse, like the magical feats of the Hindoo, Egyptian, 
 and Mongolian sorcerers. 
 
 The most devout Spiritualist would scarcely hesitate to 
 ascribe to a very low grade of spirits, such marvels as the 
 
THE " MANDRAGORA." 345 
 
 " mandragora," the transformations at Hindoo ceremo- 
 nials, or the tape and pole climbing feats described in 
 another chapter ; and he would not complain of a resort 
 by the priests to the usual forms of exorcism, set down in 
 the books of the Church, if such might comfort the 
 faithful. But, on the other hand, it would seem to almost 
 any one unreasonable that a mother, seeing her resur- 
 rected child, in form as when alive, step out before her, 
 should be asked to regard her darling one as either an 
 imp of Satan, or as brought to her by devilish arts. So, 
 too, it is revolting to one's feelings to believe that 
 pure teachings, conveyed through mediums, are less 
 admirable than they would be, if the person giving them 
 voice, wore cape and stole and chasuble. 
 
 " The simplest peasant who observes a truth, 
 
 And from a fact deduces principle, 
 
 Adds solid treasure to the public wealth." 
 
 The occurrence of the spiritualistic phenomena being 
 conceded, the very fact that this belief in their diabolic 
 origin still has a hold upon the public mind, is another 
 argument why the subject should be thoroughly investi- 
 gated ; for it is a reproach that in this boasted age of 
 knowledge and science, so important a matter should be 
 left to conjecture. If we are beset by ministers of Evil, it 
 is time we learn how to array against them a better class 
 of spirits. It is not manly to surrender at discretion. 
 
 I was talking the other day with a professor in a 
 denominational college, about the Eddys, when, after 
 hearing fact after fact, and receding foot by foot from his 
 original theory of imposture, he said that, in his opinion, 
 the less Christians had to do with such things the better. 
 In other words, he would retire within the Sanctuary, 
 
346 CO WARDL Y EDITORS. 
 
 make the sign of the Cross, and let the Devil go up and 
 down among the people, to entice, torment, and devour ! 
 
 I have spoken of the cowardice of men of science who 
 refuse to investigate, and content themselves with the 
 assumption of an attitude of contemptuous indifference ; 
 but what shall be said of Editors, who secretly believe, 
 but openly denounce ? It is within my personal knowl- 
 edge, that several persons of this class, among the most 
 influential in their profession, are firm believers in the 
 reality of the Spiritualistic phenomena, and yet allow 
 the columns of their journals to be filled with articles 
 exhibiting no less ignorance and malevolence than 
 coarse wit and sarcasm. In what estimation should 
 such panderers be held by conscientious men ? It is 
 perhaps too much to ask persons of weak moral char- 
 acter to champion an unfashionable creed in advance of 
 its general adoption — such work is reserved for men of 
 heroic mould — but they might preserve silence, and not 
 debase themselves, by joining in the hue and cry against 
 what they believe to be the Truth. They might keep 
 their papers, and not their influence, for sale. 
 
 Among the interesting queries that have been pro- 
 pounded to me, during the past three months, is one 
 coming from the Secretary of a well-known religio- 
 socialistic community, to the following effect : 
 
 " If you could manage to get a materialized spirit to 
 vanish from before your eyes in a lighted room, holding 
 in its hand some small living animal, say a canary-bird, 
 and afterwards re-materialize it ; and if the bird should, 
 after its resurrection, hop about, sing, chirp, etc., a good 
 many people would be bold enough to believe that the 
 
SPIRIT-ANIMALS. 347 
 
 same thing could be done with a baby. How would 
 that affect ordinary physical death ?" 
 
 My answer to this is very simple. Firstly, Chitten- 
 den was no place for me to try philosophical experi- 
 ments, neither the Eddys nor their spirit-friends feeling 
 friendly enough towards me to grant me many more 
 favors than other visitors; secondly, I have already 
 described the appearance of several babies, of whom 
 no traces could be found after the seance, and who, 
 therefore, must have disappeared as mysteriously as 
 they came ; thirdly, I saw, on the evening of October 
 8th, the following thing occur : Honto sprang out of 
 the cabinet soon after the circle was formed, and danced 
 about the platform, like a cork on rippling water. 
 She seemed as if enchanted to be in motion, and as 
 if she had a reserve of power sufficient to enable her 
 to do almost anything that any living woman could. 
 
 After awhile, she went into the cabinet for a moment, 
 and, reappearing, was followed out by a curious little 
 animal that hugged the floor, and waddled its short 
 legs along, in a most comical fashion. As soon as 
 our first feeling of astonishment passed off, we fell to 
 laughing at this latest importation from the spirit- 
 world. But to old Mrs. Cleveland, who was at her end 
 of the platform, as usual, it was no laughing matter, for 
 when Honto moved towards her, with the little creature 
 after her, the good dame screamed with fright, gathered 
 her petticoats about her limbs, and mounted upon her 
 chair. The spirit-squaw was convulsed with merri- 
 ment, and the room rang with our sympathetic shouts. 
 She pulled Mrs. Cleveland down, who ran to the other 
 
348 HON TO 'S FL YING SQUIRREL. 
 
 end of the platform and Honto followed her up ; until 
 finally, in her terror, the old lady clasped her arms about 
 the roguish squaw, and retreated into a corner. By this 
 time the animal had disappeared, and it was a most 
 amusing thing to see Mrs. Cleveland looking all about, 
 over the tops of her spectacles, as if the dreaded appari- 
 tion had gone down some crack in the floor. Her con- 
 fidence restored, she moved towards her chair, but 
 Honto, laughing with us behind her back and making 
 gestures to command our attention, touched and 
 caused her to face about ; when suddenly, under the 
 very edge of her skirt, the creature reappeared. This 
 was too much for human endurance, and the massive 
 matron with a despairing shriek leaped down the steps, 
 and rejoined the circle; Honto retreating into the 
 cabinet, with her pet at her heels. Upon inquiry of 
 Mrs. Eaton, we learned that this was Honto's tame 
 flying squirrel. The same authority declared that in 
 the spirit-world people surround themselves with the 
 objects they most loved on Earth, and among them 
 birds and flowers. I have mentioned this circumstance 
 as pertinent to the inquiry propounded in the above 
 query, whether living animals can be made to disappear 
 and reappear, in lighted rooms by spirit-power. 
 
 A still more curious thing was done in one of 
 Horatio's dark-circles on the evening of April 25th 
 last, the nature of which is explained in the following 
 certificate from a physician, who was present. 
 
 Chittenden, Oct. 21st, 1874. 
 
 I hereby certify that in a dark-circle, held on or about the 25th of 
 April last, at the Eddy house, the following incident occurred. The 
 spirit-girl, Mayflower, came running across the room, her foot-sleps 
 
A DEAD SPARROW REVIVED. 349 
 
 being plainly audible by all, and said to a lady present, " Oh ! 
 Mrs. K. I have caught a bird for you. I am going to make you a 
 present of it. Hold your hands." A sparrow was then placed in 
 the lady's hands, who afterwards told me that she felt both of May- 
 flower's little hands as she transferred the bird to her own. After it 
 had been examined by all who wished, by lamplight, the light was 
 again extinguished, and "George Dix" said to me, "Doctor, I want 
 you to take that bird." Having done as requested, I was told to 
 strangle it, without breaking its neck, or crushing any of the vital 
 organs. I pinched its neck until after the heart had ceased to beat, 
 and it lay in my palm, limp and lifeless, I dropped it on the floor, 
 and it made no motion. I then, by request, placed it under a glass 
 tumbler, and covering it over with a small plate, put the tumbler 
 on a chair drawn up before me, so that I could place my feet upon 
 the rungs. We were requested to sing, but we had not got through 
 with more than one verse, when George Dix called for a light ; and 
 the bird was found to be fluttering about and making attempts to 
 escape from the tumbler. It was as lively as if nothing had hap- 
 pened to it. I must say that the phenomenon was the more remark- 
 able, as it occurred in a room every window and door of which was 
 closed and sealed with strips of paper. 
 
 R. Hodgson, M. D., Stoneham, Mass. 
 
 There is but one theory, except the spiritualistic one, 
 
 to account for this affair, and that is, that a second 
 
 bird was substituted for the first after the light 
 
 was extinguished. But, as the bird was in a glass, 
 
 covered with a saucer, and this upon a chair at Doctor 
 
 Hodgson's knees, with his feet resting upon the rungs, 
 
 it would seem rather difficult to do the trick without 
 
 discovery ; unless, (and this is what destroys the whole 
 
 value of the manifestation,) the first bird, and tumbler 
 
 and all, were quietly replaced by duplicates, under 
 
 cover of the singing. Doctor Hodgson, however, 
 
 asserts to me, in the most positive manner, that he 
 
 identified the bird by a peculiar disturbance of its 
 
 feathers, caused by his rude pinching of its tiny throat. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 SPIRITS AS CARRIERS. 
 
 AT a session of the London Dialectical Society's 
 committee, held on Tuesday, April 27th, 1869, 
 Dr. Edmunds in the chair, among other witnesses 
 examined was Mr. Burns, who described certain phe- 
 nomena that had occurred in the presence of a medium 
 named Mrs. Marshall. 
 
 When in London, in 1870, I desired to have a sitting 
 with Mr. Home, but as that celebrated personage was 
 not in the city, I was advised that this Mrs. Marshall was 
 considered the next best medium in England. I visited 
 the lady at her residence in Bennett street, St. James 
 street, Piccadilly, and saw and heard such wonderful 
 things, that I am prepared to give respectful attention to 
 the statements of Mr. Burns and other witnesses. Mr. 
 Burns said that, one night, a ripe peach was brought and 
 placed in his wife's hand by an invisible power, and Mr. 
 Thomas Sherratt exhibited a number of specimens of 
 direct spirit-writing, executed at Mrs. Marshall's house 
 in a fully-lighted room. Mrs. Marshall told me herself 
 that objects of various kinds were often brought into her 
 circles by the spirits, and either laid upon the table or in 
 the hands or laps of persons sitting in the circle. Once, 
 
REFRESHMENTS FURNISHED B Y SPIRITS. 35 1 
 
 in a darkened room, at a sitting in mid-winter, a quantity 
 of grapes and other hot-house fruit, estimated to weigh 
 thirty or forty pounds, was piled up on the table ; and 
 once a spirit-hand opened one of hers and laid in her 
 palm several jewels of fine water. As to flowers of every 
 description, they were brought so often that she could 
 not recall the separate instances. 
 
 At the same session of the same committee of the 
 Dialectical Society, Miss Houghton produced some very 
 interesting drawings done by spiritualistic agency, and 
 stated, among other things, that, on the 20th of April, 
 1867, in the presence of Mrs. General Ramsay, Mrs. 
 Gregory, Mrs. Cromwell Varley, Mrs. Pearson, Miss 
 Nockolds, Miss Wallace, and Miss Nicholl (now the wife 
 of Mr. Guppy), she suddenly felt something on her head, 
 and upon striking a light discovered that she was crowned 
 with "a lovely wreath of everlasting flowers." 
 
 On the 3d of October, 1867, at a circle composed of 
 eighteen ladies and gentlemen, among them several of 
 distinction, fruit of various kinds was brought. Says the 
 witness : " By raps the spirits desired me to wish for a 
 fruit, and I chose a banana, which they promised me, 
 and then said, ' Now all may wish,' which they did, for 
 various fruits, sometimes having their wishes negatived, 
 but in most instances agreed to. The fruits were then 
 brought in the order in which they had been wished for. 
 One lady said, ' Why do you not ask for vegetables ; an 
 onion, for instance ? ' and even as she said it the onion 
 came into her lap. I will give you a list of the things 
 brought ; a banana, two oranges, a bunch of white grapes, 
 a bunch of black grapes, a cluster of filberts, three 
 
352 A FLORAL DISPLAY. 
 
 walnuts, about a dozen damsons, a slice of candied 
 pineapple, three figs, two apples, an onion, a peach, some 
 almonds, four very large grapes, three dates, a potato, 
 two large pears, a pomegranate, two crystallized green- 
 gages, a pile of dried currants, a lemon, and a large 
 bunch of raisins, which, as well as the figs and dates, 
 were quite plump, as if they had never been packed, but 
 had been brought straight from the drying ground." 
 
 Signor Damiami testified before the same committee 
 that, at various seances held in rooms with closed win- 
 dows and locked doors, fresh flowers had been showered 
 on the company. At Baron Guldenstubbe's house the 
 flowers were so numerous that they " would have filled a 
 large basket, and the fact they were perfectly fresh and 
 besprinkled with dew * * * would have precluded any, 
 the faintest suspicion of ' crinoline mystification ' or 
 sleight of hand." " I must not omit mentioning," con- 
 tinued the Signor, " that, on examining the flowers, some 
 of which still remain in my possession [after a lapse of 
 two years — H. S. O.], we perceived that the ends of the 
 stems presented a blackened and burnt appearance. On 
 our asking the reason of this, we were told that the elec- 
 tricity had been the potent 'nipper' employed." 
 
 Mr. Samuel Guppy, at page 371 of the Society's report, 
 describes a seance with the Spiritual Society of Florence 
 (Italy), at which the question whether spirits could dis- 
 tinguish colors in the dark was effectually answered : 
 " A noise was heard on the table, and the light showed a 
 heap of sugar-plums of all colors mixed together — about 
 a handful. Light put out again ; Ave heard a rattling, 
 lighted the candle and found the sugar-plums all assorted 
 
CARRYING OF STONES, Etc. 353 
 
 in little heaps of separate colors." At another seance of 
 the same society some of the most eminent Florentine 
 literati being present, the room was, at Mr. Guppy's 
 request, made very warm by the spirits. First came a 
 shower of fresh flowers which fell all about the table, 
 while Mrs. Guppy's hands were held. The light was put 
 out again, and in ten minutes an awful crash was heard 
 on the table as if the chandelier had fallen down. On 
 lighting the candle we found a large lump of ice, about 
 a foot in length and one and a half inches thick, which had 
 fallen on the table with such force that it was broken." 
 
 I might quote many similar instances, going to show 
 that the transportation of material objects, sometimes 
 from very remote places, is not an uncommon circum- 
 stance in the experience of those who have investigated 
 the phenomena of Spiritualism ; but these will suffice. 
 
 From what has already been related of the Eddy 
 mediums in my preceding chapters, it will occasion no 
 surprise, when I state that on many occasions, if the 
 testimony of eye-witnesses maybe accepted, objects have 
 been dropped on the Chittenden circle-room floor, or 
 laid in the hands of persons in attendance. I have seen 
 among other things, a large stone, weighing some sixty 
 pounds, a cart-wheel, two large mother-of-pearl shells, an 
 ear of Egyptian corn (said to have come from a mummy's 
 tomb), a specimen of a rare mineral, a gold vest-chain, a 
 heavy gold ring, two small spotted shells, a miniature 
 ivory die for a watch " charm," a small quartz-crystal, 
 and a cut white carnelian seal-stone — that were said to 
 have been brought by invisible carriers. The crystal and 
 carnelian were placed in my own hand at two different 
 
354 GREENBACKS PRODUCED. 
 
 dark-circles, but it happened in the dark and so I cannot 
 vouch for their genuineness, any more than I can for that 
 of either of the other articles. 
 
 Horatio Eddy tells me that he has been the frequent 
 recipient of these ghostly attentions. Once " George 
 Dix " put a spotted snake on his bed ; once he brought 
 him a $5 bill to give to one Riley Allen, a sick neighbor; 
 once a bill of like amount for a Mr. Barker ; once a sum 
 of money to defray a child's funeral expenses ; and once, 
 for himself, a silver-mounted pistol, the seven barrels of 
 which were all loaded except one, which the spirit dis- 
 charged himself, frightening Horatio out of his wits with 
 the idea that burglars were in the room. 
 
 One gentleman whom I met at the Eddy homestead, 
 told me of an instance within his own knowledge, in 
 which seven different communications were written, on an 
 equal number of pieces of paper of as many different 
 colors, and sewed, each with silk of a color to match the 
 paper, upon a child's pocket-handkerchief. Strangest of 
 all, upon each paper was stitched a lock of hair, pur- 
 porting to be that of the spirit writing the communica- 
 tion, and which they alleged they brought from their own 
 graves. As some of them had been dead many years, the 
 latter assertion may be taken for what it is worth. 
 
 Another gentleman visitor asserts that, last January, at * 
 his request, he had brought to him some new potatoes, 
 which must have come from afar, as the snow lay deep 
 over the whole of this northern country. 
 
 I am witness to the fact that one evening in October, 
 at a dark-circle, a lady who had brought as a present for 
 " Mayflower," a picture of a bunch of roses, painted upon 
 
GEORGE RALPH ' S CER TIEICA TE. 355 
 
 a Bristol board sheet of, say, 8x12 inches, had it taken 
 
 from her hand, and after the circle it could not be found, 
 
 although I searched the room thoroughly. 
 
 Citizens of Utica will recognize in the signature attached 
 
 to the following document, the name of one of their most 
 
 estimable fellow-townsmen, a man of high character for 
 
 probity and truthfulness : 
 
 Chittenden, October 21st, 1874. 
 Dear Sir : Please add to what you have already published, the 
 fact that, at a circle held in the lower sitting-room of the Eddy 
 homestead, on the evening of August 27th, 1873, the doors and win- 
 dows being closed and sealed, a stone weighing sixty-four pounds, 
 was suddenly dropped at my feet. I had noticed the same stone 
 lying outside the house during the day. 
 
 George Ralph, Utica, N. Y. 
 Colonel Olcott. 
 
 But I doubt if any circle ever witnessed a more aston- 
 ishing spiritual feat than that which I am about to relate. 
 
 The evening of October 24th was as bright as day with 
 the light of the moon, and, while there was a good deal 
 of moisture in the air, the atmospheric conditions would, 
 I suppose, have been regarded as favorable for manifes- 
 tations. In the dark-circle, as soon as the light was 
 extinguished, " George Dix," addressing Mme. de Blav- 
 atsky, said : " Madame, I am now about to give you a 
 test of the genuineness of the manifestations in this circle, 
 which I think will satisfy not only you, but a skeptical 
 world beside. I shall place in your hands the buckle of 
 a medal of honor worn in life by your brave father, and 
 buried with his body in Russia. This has been brought 
 to you by your uncle, whom you have seen materialized 
 this evening." Presently I heard the lady utter an excla- 
 mation, and, a light being struck, we all saw Mme. de B. 
 
356 BUCKLE FROM A RUSSIAN GRA VE. 
 
 holding in her hand a silver buckle of a most curious 
 shape, which she regarded with speechless wonder. 
 
 When she recovered herself a little, she announced 
 that this buckle had, indeed, been worn by her father, 
 with many other decorations, that she identified this par- 
 ticular article by the fact that the point of the pin had 
 been carelessly broken off by herself many years ago ; 
 and that, according to universal custom, this, with all his 
 other medals and crosses, must have been buried with 
 her father's body. The medal to which this buckle 
 belongs, was one granted by the late Czar to his officers, 
 after the Turkish campaign of 1828. The medals were 
 distributed at Bucharest, and a number of the officers 
 had buckles similar to this made by the rude silversmiths 
 of that city. Her father died July 15th, 1873, and she, 
 being in this country, could not attend his obsequies. As 
 to the authenticity of this present, so mysteriously 
 received, she possessed ample proof, in a photographic 
 copy of her father's oil portrait, in which this very buckle 
 appears, attached to its own ribbon and medal. 
 
 It will be imagined that I felt a deep anxiety to see 
 the picture in question, and later, my desire was gratified. 
 In this chapter, I now am able to present to the reader 
 sketches of the spirit's present, and the whole decora- 
 tion; the former copied from life, the latter from the 
 photograph. Both are drawn larger than the natural 
 size, and the inscription on the medal has been furnished 
 by Mme. de B. herself. Was there ever a " manifesta- 
 tion " more wonderful than this ? A token dug by 
 unknown means from a father's grave and laid in his 
 daughter's hand, five thousand miles away, across an 
 
M£ SP/RITS fi/?£S£/fr. 
 
 TMEBVC/UFANDyttftfAl fftm '7tf£ P0RTRA17* 
 
 THE KUCKLE AND MEDAL. 
 
TIMING THE SPIRITS. 359 
 
 ocean! A jewel from the breast of a warrior sleeping 
 his last sleep in Russian ground, sparkling in the candle- 
 light in a gloomy apartment of a Vermont farm-house ! 
 A precious present from the tomb of her nearest and 
 best beloved of kin, to be kept as a perpetual proof that 
 death can neither extinguish the ties of blood nor long 
 divide those who were once united and desire reunion' 
 with one another ! 
 
 I kept a minute of the time in William's materializing 
 circle that evening. It began at ten minutes of seven, 
 p. m., and closed at five minutes of eight. In the inter- 
 vening sixty-five minutes, eleven different spirit-forms 
 appeared. Honto remained in sight five minutes, old Mr. 
 Brown two and a half minutes, Chester Packard eighteen 
 seconds, William — his brother — seventeen seconds. The 
 intervals between the appearances of some of the forms, 
 'were respectively 4 minutes 45 seconds, 3:10, 2:47, I:I 3> 
 and 1 minute. Mrs. Eddy's spirit appeared and addressed 
 us, saying some friendly words to me personally, from 
 within the cabinet. Her last sentences grew fainter and 
 fainter, as though she were receding from us farther and 
 farther, until her voice was lost in the distance. 
 
 Among the most noticeable forms to present themselves, 
 was one who seemed to be either a Hindoo coolie or an 
 Arab athlete. He was dark-skinned, of short stature, a 
 lean, wiry, active form, with no more superfluous fat on 
 his frame than has a greyhound in working condition. 
 The artist, writing to me of him, says : " He left a more 
 vivid impression on my mind than any other spirit. I 
 can see him now, perfectly — long, mere bone and sinew, 
 with a cat-like suppleness. For dress, a closely-fitting 
 
360 ANOTHER RUSSIAN VISITOR. 
 
 vest, seemingly cotton, drawers tucked into what might 
 have been socks or gaiters, a sash about his loins, and 
 upon his head a dark red handkerchief." 
 
 He came to visit Mme. de Blavatsky, and made her a 
 profound obeisance : but she failed to recognize him. 
 Nevertheless, she showed no such hesitancy about another 
 of her visitors. The curtain was lifted, and out stepped 
 a gentleman of so marked an appearance as to make it 
 absurd to imagine that William Eddy could be attempt- 
 ing to personate a character in this instance. He was a 
 portly personage, with an unmistakable air of high breed- 
 ing, dressed in an evening suit of black cloth, with a 
 frilled white shirt and frilled wristbands. About his neck 
 he wore the Greek cross of St. Anne, attached to its 
 appropriate ribbon. At first Mme. de B. thought that 
 her father stood before her, but, as the figure advanced 
 another step or two towards her, thus bringing himself to 
 within five or six feet of where she sat the spirit greeted 
 her in the Russian language, and said " Djadja " (uncle), 
 She then recognized the familiar features of her father's 
 brother, to whom he bore a very strong resemblance in 
 life. This was M. Gustave A. Hahn, late President of 
 the Criminal Court at Grodno, Russia, which dignified 
 office he held for twelve years. This gentleman, who 
 died in 1861, must not be confounded with his name- 
 sake and cousin, Count Gustave Hahn, the Senator, 
 who is living in St. Petersburg at the present moment 
 
ARAK, RUSSIAN, AND INDIAN. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 TESTS CONTINUED. 
 
 OF all Mr. Crookes' statements concerning his three 
 years' experiences with the spirit " Katie King," 
 none excited more wonder than that about his 
 being allowed to cut off a lock of her hair. The very- 
 idea that so immaterial a thing as a spirit — a something 
 less substantial than the very wind that blows, a breath, 
 a hazy vapor, which, even when seen by mortal eye, 
 has seemed no more solid than the mist of morning — 
 that this unsubstantial nothing should not only be able 
 to exert dynamic energies, but hand over to the bold 
 philosopher a ringlet cut from her own head, as a 
 maiden might give a tress to her lover, was on its face 
 absurd. But, nevertheless, it was true, and the same 
 favor has been extended to several others, by this and 
 other spirits. I have already stated that I saw the 
 " Witch of the Mountain " give one of her grizzly locks 
 to Judge Bacon, and the incident related above, in this 
 chapter, tells of seven different keepsakes of the same 
 kind being given by the spirits, at one time, to one 
 person. The artist in one of his sketches represents old 
 Mrs. Cleveland in the act of cutting a lock from Honto's 
 
364 UONTO 'S HAIR EXAMINED. 
 
 head. I know of at least three different persons to 
 whom Honto gave pieces of her own hair, a portion of 
 one of which I have now in my possession. It is of a 
 stiff, wiry texture, entirely free from gray, and has been 
 fully identified, by an expert of twenty years' experi- 
 ence in the manufacture of hair goods, as of Indian 
 origin. His affidavit is as follows: 
 
 State of Vermont, ) 
 County of Rutland, j ' 
 
 Henry Williams, being duly sworn, deposes and says that he is a 
 native of New York city, a hair-worker by trade. That he worked 
 
 four years for Raufuss, of Chatham street, New York, the 
 
 largest hair-manufacturer in the said city : and ten years for Edward 
 Phalon, also of the said city. Altogether, he has had twenty years 
 experience in the manufacture of hair, and is so familiar with the 
 hair of various kinds used in the trade, as to be able to detect the 
 nationality and quality of any specimen exhibited to him. 
 
 And deponent, having been allowed to examine a specimen of 
 hair shown him by Mr. H. S. Olcott, and designated as " No. I," 
 declares the same to be of Indian origin, and from its length and 
 quality, must have been taken from the head of a squaw. The 
 sample marked " No. 2," deponent cut himself from the head of an 
 Indian squaw in the city of Albany, N. Y., on the T6th instant, at 
 the request of said Olcott, for purposes of comparison. Specimen 
 " No. 3," deponent says is American hair. The specimen " No. 1 " 
 he would know anywhere as Indian, and he cannot be mistaken as 
 to the fact. Henry Williams. 
 
 Witness : M. L. Salsbury, 
 
 State of Vermont, ) 
 County of Rutland, ) ' 
 
 Personally appeared Henry Williams, of Rutland, County of Rut- 
 land, State of Vermont, to me known, and made oath to the above 
 affidavit, this gth day of December, 1874. 
 
 G. R. Bottum, Notary Public. 
 
 The " Specimen No. 1 " referred to, is the lock pur- 
 porting to have been cut from Honto's head. " Speci- 
 men No. 2 " was cut by Mr. Williams, at my request, 
 from the head of an Indian woman, who lives, during 
 
A CLAIRVOYANT INSPECTS IT. 365 
 
 the winter months in Albany, N. Y., and in summer 
 goes into camp with her tribe. "Specimen No. 3" 
 was cut by me from William Eddy's head. I submitted 
 the first and third specimens to the expert without 
 explanation, and his judgment was given upon them 
 immediately after they came into his hands. When he 
 pronounced No. 1 Indian hair, I tried to discourage 
 the idea, by suggesting that it was taken from some 
 old wig, or from the forelock of a colt's head, but he 
 persisted, and said he would make his affidavit to the 
 fact of its real origin, in any court, at any time. 
 
 I may also mention the rather interesting circum- 
 stance, that, a few days since, I handed this Honto hair 
 to a boy clairvoyant, fourteen years of age, and the son 
 of a physician, who instantly said : " Why, this hair 
 came from a spirit's head !" I said: " Nonsense ! How 
 could I get hair from a spirit's head?" to which he 
 replied: "I don't know; but this did come from a 
 spirit ; and there she is, in that room, smiling at me, 
 and holding her hair out for me to compare this with. 
 It's the same, identical hair." I said : " I see no spirit. 
 If she is here, ask her name." The lad conversed with 
 great earnestness with the invisible presence, and finally 
 said : " Pahontus ? — Pahotus ? — what do you say it is ? 
 Ah ! yes — Honto — that's it. She says it is Honto. She 
 gave it to another man, and he gave it to you." Now, 
 I had not mentioned a word concerning the hair to the 
 boy, or any one else in the room ; in fact, I had never 
 exchanged a word with him before ; the hair was in 
 my locket, and taken out and handed to him without 
 comment. The theory of mind-reading is sufficient, 
 
366 BELL RUNG UNDER GLASS. 
 
 perhaps, to account for the incident; but as it is 
 interesting in this connection, I relate it. 
 
 Another of the series of mechanical experiments 
 attempted by me was suggested by Mr. Crookes' first 
 article in his Quarterly. He said: "The Spiritualist 
 tells of rooms and houses being shaken even to injury 
 by superhuman power. The man of science merely 
 asks for a pendulum to be set vibrating when it is in a 
 glass-case and supported on solid masonry." 
 
 It occurred to me, that in the absence of the means 
 to try so conclusive an experiment as this, I might at 
 least get the spirits to ring a bell under a glass cover, 
 and I was promised that this should be done. Accord- 
 ingly, on the evening of October 12th, in the light- 
 circle that followed William's materializing seance, I 
 placed my small table-gong upon a tambourine, and 
 inverted a tumbler over it. I was not allowed to hold 
 the tambourine myself, and so, in my eyes, all value in 
 the experiment as a scientific test was destroyed. 
 William Eddy took my place, and I was asked to step 
 a little back. The light was then ordered to be lowered, 
 and we waited for some minutes in silence. At length 
 I heard a faint sound as of the bell struck inside the 
 tumbler. It was almost inaudible, but still an unmis- 
 takable sound, and while we listened it was repeated 
 twice almost as feebly. But finally the little bell rang 
 out twice so that all could hear it, and all agreed that 
 the sound came from within the tumbler. 
 
 This inconclusive result of what should have been 
 an interesting experiment, is of a piece with many 
 things that happened to me in the course of my long 
 
MY POSITION IN THE EDD Y TAMIL Y. 367 
 
 and wearisome investigation at the Eddy house. So far 
 from the importance of my labor being recognized, 
 and all reasonable facilities afforded, I was kept con- 
 stantly at a distance, as though I were an enemy 
 instead of an unprejudiced observer. As to the family 
 realizing any feeling of gratitude for my disinterested 
 defence of their character before the public, the idea 
 apparently never crossed their minds. On the con- 
 trary, I was constantly made to feel that my toleration 
 as a member of the household was a favor for which I 
 should be grateful, and all the kind and polite treat- 
 ment I could give them, individually and collectively, 
 scarcely availed to make them grant me one favor 
 more than they bestowed upon any visitor. Other 
 persons of both sexes, strangers to them, were at 
 different times permitted to sit close to the platform, 
 upon it, and within two feet of the cabinet door ; to 
 shake hands with Honto, to dance with her, to look 
 into her very eyes, feel her hair, and measure heights 
 with her, while I never enjoyed one of these favors. I 
 never had a private seance under test conditions, and a 
 dozen simple but crucial tests, reflecting in nowise 
 upon the honor of the mediums, but calculated to 
 place them in an honorable light, and satisfy the most 
 doubting skeptic of the genuineness of the phenomena, 
 were not even mentioned by me, for fear that I might 
 get my dismissal before my work was done. 
 
 It was this state of things that kept me in that gloomy 
 house, amid such unpleasant conditions, two months, 
 to get what I might and ought to have secured in two 
 weeks. I stayed and bore everything because, having 
 
368 NO FA VORS SHO WN ME. 
 
 once undertaken to accomplish a given thing, it was not 
 my nature to abandon the task while life remained. 
 
 I have said this much in no spirit of complaint, but 
 only from a sense of justice to all concerned ; to myself, 
 because the public should know that I have neither been 
 favored beyond others nor have any personal preferences 
 to gratify in saying what has been said in favor of these 
 Eddy boys ; to the mediums, because it seems to me that 
 if they were nothing but common tricksters, their first 
 impulse, would have been to curry favor with me and try 
 to influence the tone of my writing. I have also been 
 prompted to this explanation, by the fact that various 
 newspapers have given their readers to understand that a 
 greater reliance might be placed upon my story, from the 
 fact that my intimacy with the Eddys, and the superior 
 facilities granted me, put me, as it were, inside the ring, 
 and I had seen, heard, and felt more than any ordinary 
 observer could possibly have done. For what I have 
 seen, heard, or felt, I am in nowise indebted to the favor 
 of the Eddy family, but simply to fair natural powers of 
 observation, supplemented by a sort of grim, bull-dog 
 stubbornness, and a determination to do impartial justice, 
 that kept me at a post I had once assumed. 
 
 But it affords me pleasure whenever I receive evidence 
 from disinterested persons that is corroborative of the 
 genuineness of the Eddy manifestations. I am more 
 than willing to have my personal prejudices against the 
 brothers, as individuals, overborne by proofs of their real 
 mediumistic powers. Of such a nature, is the following 
 certificate from a well-known architect of Hartford, who 
 visited Chittenden a twelvemonth since : 
 
WHA T A HARTFORD MAN SA W. 369 
 
 Hartford, Conn., December 24th, 1874. 
 Col. H. S. Olcott, 
 
 Dear Sir — In answer to your request for a statement from me of 
 what I saw at the Eddys', in Chittenden, I have this to say : 
 
 My first and only visit to those remarkable mediums, was in the 
 fall of 1873. I attended the light and dark seances held during 
 three evenings. The facilities afforded me for close and careful 
 investigation were unusually good. It was my privilege to examine 
 Wm. Eddy on two occasions before he entered the " cabinet," which 
 was an old closet, off the south room, down stairs, and under the 
 stairs. In my examination of Mr. Eddy's person, just before his 
 entering the closet, I went as far as a decent regard for propriety 
 would permit. I removed his coat, unbuttoned his vest, placed my 
 hands beneath the waistband of his pants, and fully satisfied myself 
 that all the clothing he had about him was his usual farm dress — a 
 brown check gingham shirt, coat, pants, and vest. Any person after 
 making such an examination as I did, could have but one conclusion, 
 and that, that Wm. Eddy could not possibly have concealed about 
 his person, the different costumes that were afterwards seen during 
 the seances. The closet being examined before and after the seance, 
 and nothing found but its bare walls, the idea of trickery on the part 
 of Wm. Eddy was too silly to be entertained for one moment. 
 
 The closet has been often described by different writers. I did 
 not measure it, but judge its size to be 4 by 8 feet. It was evidently 
 plastered when the house was built, rather coarsely done (the marks 
 of the trowel being plainly seen), flush down with the base boards, 
 which were perhaps 7 inches wide. The floor was the same undis- 
 turbed old work, put down when the house was erected, To talk of 
 panels, traps, or possible openings where a confederate could assist, 
 is worse than nonsense ; nothing of the kind could possibly be there 
 without being detected by an experienced architect like myself. If 
 costumes were taken in there, it must have been when from fifteen 
 to twenty individuals were looking at the door, and as I sat directly 
 opposite and within ten feet of it, I can safely say that such a thing 
 was impossible. The different costumes seen during the three 
 evenings of my stay, would have filled a large sized Saratoga trunk. 
 The first object seen each night, and that in less than ten seconds 
 after Wm. Eddy had disappeared behind the shawl which hung over 
 the door, was a clean, white, naked hand and arm, thrust out from 
 behind the shawl. It was evidently a lady's hand and arm. Honto 
 made her appearance next, on each evening. The second night she 
 lighted a friction match which had been placed in the closet for her 
 use, and held the blazing stick directly before her face so that every 
 person in the room saw her Indian face with perfect distinctness. 
 
370 CLOSE OBSERVATION. 
 
 After retiring behind the shawl, an Indian woman next appeared, 
 dressed entirely different and in the exact costume of the squaws of 
 the St. Regis tribe. This was a striking and sudden change, and a 
 very remarkable incident withal. The dress was a blue petticoat or 
 underskirt, with a yellow border around the bottom, and a yellow 
 stripe woven into the cloth, six or seven inches above ; moccasins, 
 leggins, and the usual tape windings around and above the ankles, 
 were all to be seen. It was not Honto, but some other Indian 
 maiden. The change of costume must have been made in less than 
 one minute, if it was a trick. The forms of men neatly dressed in 
 black, came out, with their white linen bosoms and cuffs plain 
 enough to be seen, to satisfy all that they were not Wm. Eddy, who- 
 ever else they might be. One person, nearly half a head taller than 
 "Wm. Eddy, came out, and was recognized by several people from 
 Rutland. I saw the features plainly of several persons, who, had I 
 ever known them, I could have recognized at once ; my position 
 being so near, and being fortunately blest with good eyes. 
 
 In Horatio's light seance, it was my privilege to sit for the ring 
 test. I positively know the ring was in a gentleman's hand in front 
 of me, when I prepared for the test by taking Horatio's right hand 
 in my right, and his left hand in ?}iy left (I am particular about this, 
 for the reason that I have seen the performance differently described). 
 The gentleman holding the ring passed it up, and I saw, while hold- 
 ing both of Horatio's hands, a hand above the curtain take the ring 
 from the gentleman, and with a sudden shudder on the part of 
 Horatio, the ring flew from his right arm, on to mine with such 
 force, that it hurt me severely , as it struck the joint of my thumb in 
 passing over. A guitar lying in my lap, the strings all in sight, and 
 a lamp burning on the table within three feet of myself, played a 
 correct and lively accompaniment to several dance tunes, whistled 
 by a party present. The head of the instrument was held by 
 Horatio's muffled hand; but the strings were struck in the usual 
 place, directly over the hole in the body of the instrument. I could 
 plainly distinguish that as the point of greatest vibration, and also 
 see flashes of electrical light on the strings. 
 
 I saw an iron or' steel ring fall from Horatio's arm in the broad 
 light. His arms were bound tightly behind his back. The ring 
 was most assuredly on his arm, or else a dozen witnesses didn't know 
 what they saw. A sudden shudder came through him, but no per- 
 ceptible motion of his hands or arms, and the ring fell upon the 
 floor, and rolled some distance away. These are a few of the essen- 
 tial points I fully and distinctly remember. 
 
 Truly yours, S. W. Lincoln. 
 
 One of the sketches upon the opposite page represents 
 
HON TO PLAYS THE ORGAN. 373 
 
 Mme. de Blavatsky playing the parlor-organ, with Honto 
 as a spectator at very close quarters. 
 
 Among the latest and most startling phases of the mani- 
 festations, is the actual playing upon a parlor organ by 
 the materialized spirit-girl Honto, herself. The first 
 instance of the kind occurred on the evening of October 
 27th. Mr. Ralph, of Utica, Mr. Pritchard, of Albany, 
 and old Mrs. Cleveland, were all sitting on the platform, 
 that evening, but were requested to take their seats among 
 the audience, and the benches were ordered pushed a 
 little farther back than usual. Honto then reappeared 
 (she had been out before doing some of her usual tricks), 
 examined the instrument with attention, and, with one 
 foot working the pedal, played a few notes. She then 
 retired to the cabinet, reappeared, and, taking a chair that 
 Mr. Ralph placed for her, sat down and played a wild, 
 disconnected melody as an accompaniment to her voice. 
 
 This being her first attempt at singing, the effect was 
 weird in the extreme. Her notes were harsh, wailing, 
 and discordant, and it was almost enough to freeze one's 
 blood to hear it. She repeated this performance four 
 times that evening, and it has been a feature of each 
 night's seance up to the present time. On the evening 
 of the 21st instant, I saw her dance, play the organ, smoke 
 a cigar, make a lot of shawls and tissues, dance a jig with 
 Horatio, take a bracelet from a lady visitor as a present, 
 and heard her sing. Surely, enough for one spirit to do 
 at one performance ; a leading woman in a variety show 
 could hardly be asked for more ! 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 PSEUDO-INVESTIGATORS. 
 
 THE first time I attended a dark-circle at the Eddys' 
 I contracted a feeling of real affection for the little 
 child spirit (real or imaginary) known as " May- 
 flower." Her music was so sweet and full of expression, 
 her poetical attempts evinced so tender a regard for the 
 beautiful in nature, her conversation was so child-like 
 and innocent, she seemed actuated by so strong a senti- 
 ment of charity and broad compassion for all who came, 
 that I could not help loving her — or, at least, the ideal 
 child whom I pictured to myself as standing in our 
 presence in the darkened chamber. 
 
 I think that a love of children and all their ways is 
 one of the strongest traits of my disposition, and it may 
 be well that in this matter of Mayflower's identity I 
 allowed myself to become the willing dupe of my imagin- 
 ation. Possibly there is no such creature as she, and her 
 voice, her speech, and her sentiments are only parts of a 
 clever imposture. I have never seen her, nor felt more 
 than her hand (or a hand of the size that I should 
 suppose such a child as she might have), and I have no 
 proof to cite in support of her individual existence, 
 beyond the certificate of the two little girls, already 
 
HOW IS IT DONE? 375 
 
 published. I have no conclusive evidence to offer a 
 scientific investigator, that she ever spoke a word, or drew 
 a breath, or took a step ; and if my reason could be 
 satisfied upon certain points, I would be ready to admit 
 that every feature of these dark-circles may be a trick. 
 
 Before doing so, however, I should demand to know 
 how one man, even with both hands untied, and free to 
 move about, could play upon the violin, guitar, con- 
 certina, mouth-harmonicon, triangle, and flute, and ring 
 several bells, all at the same moment; how he could 
 imitate the whistling of the wind, the splash of waves, 
 the sucking of a pump, and other sounds, simultaneously 
 with the playing of music of various instruments ; how he 
 could see to pick up articles in the dark, to describe 
 things in people's pockets, and reach a particular mouth 
 or cheek to kiss, or a particular hand to shake, for all 
 these things are done in Horatio Eddy's dark-circle. 
 And if all these were explained, I should still want to 
 have the episode of Madame de Blavatsky's father's 
 buckle accounted for. I am ready to concede that the 
 medium may slip his hands out of his bonds and go 
 about in his stocking feet in the dark, strumming instru- 
 ments, pounding tambourines, and touching people ; this 
 has been done before, and exposed before. 
 
 Some (a Boston friend of mine included), even say that 
 they have detected Horatio himself at the game. But 
 that explanation does not cover our case, for it does not 
 show how one man can do the work of a half dozen men, 
 or accomplish such a miracle as that of the buckle 
 brought from the Russian grave. Nor does it show how 
 the discordant fiddle-scraping and nasal singing of the 
 
376 LITTLE MA YFLO WER. 
 
 mediums, can be transformed into the fine execution and 
 artistic coloring of the music of the unseen violinist, 
 flutist, accordeonist, and harmonicon player of the dark- 
 circles, and the rich soprano and alto voices that some- 
 times issue from William's cabinet. 
 
 Therefore, until the desired explanation is vouchsafed 
 by some closer reasoner than I, I will leave Horatio to 
 prowl about in the dark and play tricks if he will, and 
 hold to my sweet little spirit Mayflower — to stand as an 
 ideal of what my own children and other people's chil- 
 dren are like, in the other and brighter world to which 
 they have passed on before. 
 
 To resume, then: On this first night, she said to me, 
 that if I would get her some ribbons, she would make me 
 a wreath, such as she had braided for a lady visitor, and 
 which I had admired. On my way to New York, I procured 
 some ribbons of three colors, in Rutland, and sent them 
 up to Chittenden to the care of a Mr. Luther B. Hunt, 
 of St. Albans, a friend of Horatio, who was visiting at 
 the homestead. The parcel and my note, he says, he put 
 in the pocket of his coat, which hung in his bedroom, 
 intending to take the ribbons with him to the next dark- 
 circle, and hold the little maid to the fulfillment of her 
 promise to me. But the same day, William being, as he 
 usually is, "under influence," said : "Mr. Hunt, if you 
 will go up-stairs and look in your pocket you will find 
 something." Mr. Hunt went and searched his coat, but 
 found nothing, and, returning, reported his ill-luck. But 
 William said that he had not looked in the right place, 
 it was in the vest-pocket where the articles were. And in 
 the vest-pocket, sure enough, he found two wreaths, one 
 
SPIRIT WREA TH-BRAIDING. 
 
 377 
 
 of which was for me, and the other, for another gentleman. 
 The next evening there was a dark-circle, and May- 
 flower, addressing Mr. Hunt, said that he had overlooked 
 the note for me that she had left with the wreath. 
 Another search of the vest disclosed a tiny note, written 
 on a small square of thin paper, and being to the effect 
 that I was her dear friend, and she thanked me for my 
 kind expressions, and hoped I would keep the wreath to 
 remember her by. So, the least I could do was to have 
 
 JYREAT/t 
 
 the artist make a sketch of her present, that all the 
 readers may see what sort of braiding they do in the 
 other world in the present year of grace. 
 
 It struck me a few days afterward that, as Mayflower 
 was in so complaisant a mood, she might not be unwilling 
 to give me another specimen of her skill, accompanied 
 with something of a test ; so, putting the wreath in my 
 pocket, the next time a dark-circle was to be held, I said 
 nothing of my intention to any one. After the light was 
 extinguished, and the room was so dark that one could 
 
 not see a hand held close to one's eyes, I took out my 
 13 
 
378 THE LOST WREATH. 
 
 wreath and quietly laid it in the lap of the lady sitting 
 beside me. Presently Mayflower's voice said : " Oh ! 
 
 Mrs. , what have you got in your lap ? It's my 
 
 wreath ! Mr. Olcott, you want me to braid it over again 
 for you ? " I said I did, in another pattern and with the 
 ribbons passed through some perforated sea-shells, such 
 as I had heard she had used a long time before for 
 another friend of hers. She replied that she had no 
 shells with her at the moment, but she would get some 
 and re-braid my wreath and return it to me the next time 
 we met. Although no one had known of my purpose, and 
 the wreath had been discovered by Mayflower lying in 
 the lap of a person who did not know what I had placed 
 there in the dark, I thought it better to make assurance 
 doubly sure, so I reached over, and taking the wreath 
 from the lap of the lady on my left, / dropped it on the 
 floor at my right, where no one but myself knew it to be, 
 and no one who could not see in the dark could discover 
 it to pick it up, But when a light was struck soon after, 
 the wreath was go?ie. It was returned to me on the evening 
 of the 26th of September, under curious circumstances. 
 There was a great power manifested in the dark-circle 
 that evening. The Indian dance was given with yells 
 that made some of the timid ones shiver with apprehen- 
 sion, and the dancers stamped on the floor until it seemed 
 .as if they must go through into the dining-room below. 
 Then " George Dix " whistled, and played a solo on the 
 fife, and gave us " The Storm at Sea ; " and Mayflower 
 elicited unbounded applause by her accordeon and har- 
 monicon playing with the bell accompaniments, which 
 you may be sure was listened to in profound silence. I 
 
A DARK-CIRCLE EXPERIENCE. 379 
 
 have seen no such description of this spirit-music, as that 
 given by Thackeray's friend, the late Robert Bell, in the 
 Cornhill Magazine for August, i860 He is describing a 
 dark-circle of Mr. Home's, at which an accordeon was 
 played : 
 
 "We listened with suspended breath. The air was wild and full 
 of strange transitions, with a wail of pathetic sweetness running 
 through it. The execution was no less remarkable for its delicacy, 
 than for its power. When the notes swelled in some of the bold 
 passages, the sound rolled through the room with an astounding 
 reverberation, then, gently subsiding, sank into a strain of divine 
 tenderness." 
 
 Mayflower's playing is not always alike, sometimes 
 •being less sweet and expressive than others ; but I have 
 heard it on occasions when the above eloquent descrip- 
 tion would hardly exaggerate its effect upon the audience. 
 
 After the concert, " George Dix " requested Joe. Rugg, 
 the faithful farmer of the family, to strike a light and 
 bring a small stand and a glass of water. These direc- 
 tions were complied with, and the water being placed upon 
 the stand, the light was extinguished again, and, for a 
 moment, we were in total darkness. But soon the candle 
 was re-lighted, and we discovered the glass of water 
 inverted upon the stand, the water within the glass, and 
 nothing over the mouth to keep it in. The light was put 
 out again, and when again called for, the stand was upside 
 down on the floor, and the tumbler, with its contents, 
 right side up, balanced upon the point of one of the legs. 
 
 The light was extinguished for the fourth time and 
 re-lighted, and then what should I see but the tumbler on 
 the floor, at my feet, the water all gone, and my wreath, 
 re-braided and decorated with sea-shells, inside, as dry as 
 a bone ! The artist, on page 377, gives us a sketch of the 
 
380 THE KNOWING ONES AGAIN. 
 
 new wreath, and in the series of four small pictures, we 
 have the successive stages of this manifestation depicted. 
 With characteristic irreverence, I suggested that the water 
 had disappeared down the medium's throat, but George 
 Dix told us that it had been dissipated into a fine mist, 
 and was held suspended in the atmosphere of the room. 
 
 I wish that some of the wiseacres who have accounted 
 for the appearance of child-forms in the materializing 
 circles of William Eddy, on the theory that they were 
 pillows, could only have seen a few of them before show- 
 ing their ignorance so painfully. I wish that my witty, 
 fellow Lotos Eater, the Hon. Robert B. Roosevelt, had 
 taken the trouble to visit Chittenden, before putting him- 
 self on record as such a hasty generalizer upon the spirit- 
 ualistic phenomena, as he does in a recently published 
 letter to The Daily Graphic. Hear him talk about 
 William Eddy and these baby spirits : 
 
 " No one feels like laughter at the sight of the devoted wife 
 hungering to find in the'fantastic figure, donned in dim twilight by 
 some sham medium, the beloved shape of her dead husband, or in 
 the agonized mother longing to recognize, in the painted knees of a 
 charlatan, exhibited in the same darkness, the rosy cheeks of her 
 darling, gone from her forever. We cannot laugh at these exhibitions 
 of wifely or maternal love, but we should scorn and denounce the 
 impostors who make a living by playing on these noblest affections 
 of human nature." 
 
 Painted knees, quotha! William Eddy's painted 
 knees ! Why, can a man's knees walk detached, and 
 say 6 Papa " and " Mamma," and " I am happy," and 
 throw kisses to us, and courtesy, and all that sort of 
 thing? Could they, even if they were painted 
 " dunduckety and mud-color, edged with sky-blue 
 scarlet ? " Can a man of 179 pounds, and five feet nine 
 
TABLE AND CLASS. 
 
j IGNORANCE AND PREJUDICE OF WRITERS. 383 
 
 inches, dressed to represent a young girl with bare 
 neck and arms, a weight of 120 pounds, and a height of, 
 say, five feet one inch, walk up and down the stage, 
 fondling his own knee as if it were a baby, and making 
 it stick simulated thumbs into an imaginary mouth, 
 and pass false chubby arms around his neck, and move 
 them about? 
 
 We had one dose, recently, from a pseudo-investiga- 
 tor, in a puerile explanation of phenomena he never 
 saw, by the application of a theory that wouldn't even 
 fit the few things he did see. Let us be spared a 
 repetition. If certain men of prominent social, political, 
 or professional standing, are asked what they think 
 about " materialization," why cannot they be honest 
 enough to say they know nothing about it, and not 
 put themselves up for the ridicule of those who do ? 
 
 The discovery of apparently so gross a fraud as the 
 more recent of the " Katie King " materializations, in 
 Philadelphia, in the presence of the Holmes mediums, 
 even if real, does not invalidate one single genuine 
 phenomenon of this class. Foolish Editors, anxious to 
 disbelieve the possibility of the reappearance of the 
 dead in materialized form, may indulge in exhibitions 
 of premature hilarity, may announce the exposure of 
 "this latest and most dangerous humbug," and vote 
 the spiritualistic delusion finally and effectually dis- 
 posed of, but their ignorance and prejudice plead in 
 their behalf for lenity of judgment. We had just such 
 behavior from them in 1847, when self-sufficient wise 
 men explained away the Rochester rappings upon the 
 knee-cap and toe-joint theory. There is no occasion 
 
384 EFFECT OF INVESTIGA TIONS. 
 
 to doubt that this recent jubilation will result in the 
 same confusion of face to these expounders as did the 
 other; and as fifty of the same kind have, since that time. 
 
 The phenomena of modern spiritualism have agitated 
 society for more than a quarter of a century, and the 
 interest in the subject is tenfold greater to-day than 
 ever before, by the confession of its bitterest opponents, 
 It is not doubted by the best informed investigators, 
 that the very persons whose trickery is claimed to have 
 been shown up, are powerful mediums. Some day we 
 will see a new principle of investigation adopted, 
 and mediums will be judged as such, apart from their 
 merits or demerits as individuals. Then, skeptics and 
 believers, alike, will neither be, on the one hand elated, 
 nor on the other depressed by the discovery that all 
 mediums are more or less given to the imitation of the 
 genuine phenomena which occur, under favorable 
 conditions, in their presence. 
 
 Occupying, as I do, a neutral position between the 
 two classes, I am both surprised and amused to see 
 how they are affected respectively, by each new revela- 
 tion like the one to which I have referred above. No 
 one should undertake the difficult work of investigating 
 this or any other branch of knowledge, unless he is 
 able to view the whole ground, note every detail 
 whether favorable or unfavorable, and pursue his labors 
 with the " passionless calm of science." 
 
 The , above paragraphs had hardly been written, 
 when the post brought me a letter from a respected 
 and perfectly trustworthy correspondent which serves 
 as a commentary upon my remarks concerning the 
 
THE HOLMES PHENOMENA. 385 
 
 probable mediumship of the Holmes'. Says the writer: 
 
 " I have seen, as yet, no satisfactory explanation of the phenomena 
 which I witnessed (at the Holmes seances, last summer. H. S. O.) 
 and 'till I do, I shall not, simply because I cannot, believe them to 
 have been trickery. Why do they not tell us who the John King 
 was, whom we saw standing by Katie's side, while the mediums sat with 
 Mr. Owen and myself, holding our hands. The levitation of the form 
 of " Katie," which I saw, was not simulated by getting upon a 
 " black stool." I saw distinctly the lower limbs, and white, bare 
 feet, moving in the air, as if the form were partially reclining. Nor 
 do I in the least believe that the apparent dissolving of the form 
 was produced by "black cloths." I saw too much that is not 
 yet accounted for, to make me yield up my confidence in its 
 genuineness." 
 
 At this present, the Holmeses are protesting their 
 veritable mediumship. It is a pity that some unbiased 
 person could not investigate the case under proper test 
 conditions. It seems the more necessary, since in 
 addition to all other sources of confusion, cards of a 
 very contradictory nature, as to the reality of the 
 Holmes phenomena, from Dr. H. T. Child, of Philadel- 
 phia, and Gen. F. J. Lippitt, of Boston, have j ust appeared 
 in the Banner of Light. The latter gentleman is the 
 author of an article in the December Galaxy entitled 
 " Was it Katie King ? " in which he describes a number 
 of phenomena which appear impossible of simulation. 
 Among these may be mentioned the fact that, after the 
 face of the supposed materialized Katie King had been 
 exposed rather longer than usual, the eyes began to 
 sag, and appear as if melting ; but upon the spirit's 
 withdrawing into the cabinet for a minute or so, she 
 would reappear smiling, and with her features per- 
 fectly natural again. 
 
 Because a man has seen some tables turn, or heard a 
 
386 JOHN BROUGHAM'S VIEWS. 
 
 few raps, or caught Foster, or Home, or the Davenports, 
 or even one of the Eddys, sometimes playing tricks when 
 .conditions were unfavorable for genuine manifestations 
 of the occult force, why should he rush pell-mell into the 
 ditch of sweeping conjecture, and besmear such reputa- 
 tion as he may have for impartiality, acumen, and 
 thoroughness ? Fifty or fifty thousand cases of medium- 
 istic trickery do not invalidate a solitary genuine fact. 
 
 Dear old John Brougham has turned the hose of his 
 inspired wrath upon the fire of investigation that reddens 
 the whole intellectual horizon, and he hopes to put it out 
 by declaring that : " As for the last new, childishly 
 ridiculous phase of the prevailing insanity, ' materializa- 
 tion,' it is so gross and manifest a cheat, that one's 
 common sense revolts at the villainous compound of 
 impudence and profanity;" to discuss it seriously would 
 be a waste of words ! " I see the dear old fellow now, at 
 whist in the Lotos Club, sipping his brandy and soda, 
 and uttering, oj-e rotundo, this grandiloquent diatribe ! 
 But it will not avail. People of pluck and intelligence 
 are not to be diverted from their hunt after the truth, by 
 either ridicule or invective. 
 
 This is the time of a death-struggle between Religion 
 and Materialism. The gladiators are fighting for all they 
 hold dear in the way of opinion ; they waste no words, 
 but grip each other, and look into each other's eyes, 
 each watching and waiting for the chance to hurl the 
 other into the deep abyss of oblivion. It is too late to 
 try to stop this issue ; it is here ; we are in its midst ; and 
 that is why people will hear all that can be said of these 
 Eddy " materializations," and r* r all the minor phases of 
 
THE RETURNED DARLING. 389 
 
 this wonderful manifestation from the other world to this. 
 
 Now, if either of my esteemed friends, previously 
 mentioned, had been at Chittenden on the evening of 
 October 1st, what would he have seen? Through the 
 dim twilight of the circle-room he would have seen upon 
 the platform the figure of a woman with a child in her 
 arms. He would have seen this woman in white, step 
 forward to the railing, and stand there, stroking the 
 baby's head, looking towards a lady in the audience, and 
 waiting to be addressed. He would have seen the baby 
 move its head as a living child does, and the woman pat 
 it) and apparently smooth its soft hair as a mortal woman 
 would a mortal child's, to keep it quiet. He would have 
 seen a group so real that all preconceptions about painted 
 knees or painted anything else would have left his mind 
 at once, and he would have sat there, as we did, wonder- 
 ing whence these forms had come and how long they 
 would tarry. 
 
 And then, as the lady spectator caught the resemblance 
 of the figure to her dead sister, he would have heard a 
 wail break from that mother's heart, and her imploring 
 cry to be allowed to go up and embrace the darling whom 
 she had last seen in its coffin, and had despaired of ever 
 seeing again. If his eyes were not by this time moistened 
 with the tears of human sympathy, as John Brougham's 
 certainly would have been, he would then have seen this 
 spirit-woman on the platform kiss the babe in her arms 
 and fondle it, and hold it out over the railing towards its 
 mother, to give assurance that it was in good hands, and 
 rejoice her heart with at least the sight of her child, if 
 she might not take it to her bosom and cover it with 
 "3* 
 
390 VALUE OF ONE SATISFACTORY TEST. 
 
 kisses. Heavens ! could a man of refined feeling witness 
 such a scene as this, not an uncommon one at the Eddys', 
 and not rejoice with the mother over the finding of the 
 lost one, and grieve with her when, in another moment, it 
 passed away from her sight into that world of shadows 
 that lies as a borderland between us and eternity ? 
 
 Such value as these observations of mine at Chitten- 
 den may have, is largely due to the fact that they are 
 corroborative of the experiments of Mr. Crookes, 
 under strictly test conditions. While his results do 
 not strengthen mine, since the circumstances surround- 
 ing us both were entirely different, and inferior in my 
 case to his, yet mine do his ; for I have, in all human 
 probability, witnessed three or four hundred appear- 
 ances of spirit-forms, similar to his " Katie King," in 
 the solidity of their bodies, their physical movements, 
 the manner of their appearance and disappearance, and 
 their use of speech and display of mental action. If in 
 any one instance I could have seen Honto disappear 
 under test conditions, or, when she was outside the 
 cabinet, have been allowed to see William Eddy inside; 
 or if, after lining the cabinet sides, ceiling, and floor, 
 with some impenetrable fabric, and shutting William 
 in in such a way that he could not possibly have walked 
 out without my knowing it, spirits had presented them- 
 selves to my view, then the whole of the other three 
 hundred and odd apparitions would have counted on 
 the credit side of my balance sheet, with the Eddy 
 mediums. 
 
 In my own mind, I am satisfied that no fraud was 
 perpetrated by William, but that is not conviction 
 
A VIE IV FROM THE EDDYS' STAND-POINT. 391 
 
 based upon the firm rock of mathematical demonstra- 
 tion. It is a sentiment, not an axiom. And yet, I do 
 not know that I can blame these boys for acting as they 
 did towards me. I must not judge them by an arbi- 
 trary standard, such as I would apply to my own case. 
 I can put myself in the place of the Eddy family, and 
 see that if a stranger whose habits, thoughts, and ways 
 were utterly unlike and antipodal to mine, were to 
 come, unasked, and plant himself as a sort of sentinel 
 to watch my every movement, study my very thoughts, 
 scrutinize my slightest action, and force me to see him 
 on the alert, by day and night, for a long succession of 
 weeks, I should feel like putting him out of the win- 
 dow, if he would not use the door the carpenter made. 
 I don't think that the plea that it was all for the good 
 of the public, and in the interest of science, would make 
 it any pleasanter to reflect that he regarded me as a 
 liar and cheat, until I had proved to his satisfaction 
 that I was not. This, if I were ever so honest ; while, 
 if I were only a little and semi-occasionally disposed 
 to help things along when they lagged, or if the person 
 were bent upon digging into the roots of things, to 
 discover principles and laws of which I knew little and 
 cared less, I should wish him to remove, with bag and 
 baggage, and not vex me or my spirit-band with isms 
 and ologies, when we were only bent on producing 
 certain physical phenomena for the consolation of the 
 average Spiritualist. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE SHAKERS AS SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 THERE appeared in the New York Daily Graphic, 
 of date November 24th, 1874, a lively and inter- 
 esting report of an interview between one of the 
 Editors and Frederick W. Evans, one of the chief elders 
 of the Society of Shakers, at which time strange assertions 
 were made. 
 
 Among other things, Mr. Evans said that eleven years 
 before the rappings through the mediumship of the Fox 
 girls, similar and much more striking phenomena had run 
 their course throughout the peaceful settlements of this 
 devoted people. The children were first seized with 
 trances, or clairvoyant sleeps, in which they would answer 
 questions correctly, and display the power of seeing 
 objects and persons without the use of the corporeal eye. 
 
 The affair got bruited about among the brethren and 
 
 sisters, and the spirits first manifesting themselves in the 
 
 Lebanon settlement, passed on to Watervliet, and so, in 
 
 turn, to all the sixty communities of the Order. The 
 
 Shakers took the communications at first, much a's the 
 
 world's people do now ; believing the stories told by the 
 
 392 
 
THREE PHASES OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 393 
 
 invisible beings, and keeping a record, which was after- 
 wards published in sundry books, the titles of two of 
 which were " Holy Wisdom" and the "Sacred Roll." 
 
 Mr. Evans claims to have first defined (in i860,) 
 Spiritualism as a science and not a religion. He says 
 that it should be studied in the same manner as Agricul- 
 ture, Chemistry, or any other of the physical sciences. 
 He declared that it ran through three phases in his 
 Society, and the report continues thus : 
 
 "What are those? " 
 
 " The first is the ' test phase.' In this, the seeker is principally 
 interested in ascertaining the reality of the communications and 
 their genuineness. We wish to test the mediums, and inquire 
 whether the manifestations are really what they pretend to be." 
 
 " What is the second phase ? " 
 
 " The second phase is the 'judgment phase.' In this, social rela- 
 tions are established between those in and those out of the flesh. 
 Attachments were formed between the spirit-world and the mediums, 
 and the attachments began to take the form of criticisms. The 
 spirits instructed and reproved. The second phase was a phase of 
 judgment on the individual and on society. During the whole of 
 this phase, we were forming a relation with the higher spirits, and 
 they were instructing and criticising us. Then it was that Spiritual- 
 ism began to be a ministration of religion. That was what caused 
 our people to interblend Religion and Spiritualism. We attached an 
 infallibility to the manifestations, similar to the infallibility which 
 the Christian world attaches to the Scriptures. The second phase 
 was a phase of judgment, for purging out everything that was wrong 
 in the character of the individual — correcting faults, reproving error, 
 and amending the life and disposition." 
 
 " What do you call the ' third phase?' " 
 
 " The ' missionary phase.' When the second phase was finished, 
 and the revelations had been received from the highest spirits, then 
 we preached the truth to the lower spirits, We were missionaries to 
 the other world. Religion was ministered to us by the higher circles 
 of spirits, and we ministered to those who were below us. Then it 
 was that the work of judgment took effect among those spirits, and 
 they would confess their faults and the sins of their lives, just as 
 though they were in this life. I have heard many spirits confess 
 their sins." 
 
394 MANIFESTA TIONS AMONG THE SHAKERS. 
 
 "You are a medium, then ?" 
 
 "Yea. All the Shakers are mediums. There is scarcely an excep- 
 tion. These confessions are made to the mediums, and then they 
 would repeat it aloud. The spirits would obsess an individual, and 
 then the confessions would be made." 
 
 " Do you have any of these manifestations now?" 
 
 " Yea. We can have as much of them as we like. The spirits of 
 the prophets are subject to the prophets." 
 
 " What kind of confessions were made by the spirits? " 
 
 " Some of the most interesting confessions were made by members 
 of a tribe of Indians. These came and confessed their sins to us, 
 and said they would join our order. Then we would appoint them 
 elders and elderesses, and then they would go off to their tribe and 
 preach to them, and the spirits of the tribe would confess to them 
 and they would become Shakers. When they had done this they 
 would come again to us, just the same as if they were in the body. 
 For instance, one or two elders might be in the room below, and 
 there would be a knock at the door, and the Indians would ask 
 whether they might come in. Permission being given, a whole tribe 
 of Indian spirits would troop into the house, and in a few minutes 
 you would hear ' whoop ' here and ' whoop ' there, all over the 
 house." 
 
 " But nobody in the rooms above had known that the elders had 
 admitted the Indian spirits ? " 
 
 " Nay. We only knew it who heard them ask permission to 
 enter. But in a few minutes after permission was given, everybody 
 in the house would be obsessed. You would hear the men and 
 women talking as if they were Indians. No theatricals that ever 
 you saw on earth were equal to it. They would act out what they 
 were simulating. They would sing new songs entirely unknown to 
 our people, and sometimes they would sing in a foreign language 
 that none of us knew. The mediums would converse together as if 
 they were Indians, and not as themselves." 
 
 " You never let the outside world know what was going on ?" 
 
 " Nay indeed. What took place among us was so wonderful that 
 it seemed incredible. And if we had published it to the world, we 
 should all have been sent to Bedlam." 
 
 " Don't you think that modern Spiritualism is much the same thing 
 as the visions of monks and nuns in the Middle Ages? " 
 
 " Certainly. That is the proper explanation of them through all 
 the ages. The visions of St. Theresa were merely spiritualistic 
 visions, just such as we have frequently had vouchsafed to the mem- 
 bers of our society." 
 
 " And necromancy and magic belong to the same category ? " 
 
 /' 
 
MR. EVANS' FIRM BELIEF. 395 
 
 "Yea. That is, when Spiritualism is used for selfish ends, and 
 probably mixed with fraud and pretence, like doctor-craft. If you 
 editors of papers were to turn your criticism upon doctor-craft, with 
 its abominable frauds and shams, and pretences, and poisonous drugs, 
 you would be doing a real service to mankind." 
 
 " Well, reverting to your spiritual experiences — how is it that you 
 never published them to the world ? " 
 
 " We have always known that we should have a work to do in 
 relation to Spiritualism, but we did not know when that work would 
 begin. The manifestations lasted seven years, then they ceased. 
 The spirits told us when they left us, that in a very short time they 
 would give manifestations everywhere, from the palace to the hamlet, 
 all over the world. We knew that we should have to work at the 
 appointed time, but we knew also, that Providence would point out 
 to us the way and the method in which we should work. It was 
 "four years, before we had any evidence of the truth of what the 
 spirits had told us. Many of us had begun to doubt ; we thought 
 that they had deceived us. But when the Rochester manifestations 
 began, then all knew that they had told us the truth. So I and 
 another member of the society went off to Rochester to question 
 the spirits. I asked them if this was the work for which we had so 
 long been waiting. They told us yes ! Immediately that we 
 entered the room, the rappings were made on the table and all 
 around us in the most remarkable manner. The spirits manifested 
 great joy at our arrival. I saw that the room was full of spirits. 
 Margaret and Katherine Fox left everybody to come and assist us in 
 our conversations with the spirits. We sat down and held long con- 
 versations with them. We asked them if the work for which we had 
 been so long waiting had really commenced. They said ' Yes, it 
 had.' I then asked them if they would show themselves in mate- 
 rializations. I asked them if they would act in the same way upon 
 material elements, as they had acted upon spiritual elements. They 
 said, 'Yes.' 
 
 " Then you consider that the recent materializations are genuine ?" 
 
 "Yea, certainly. I visited the Eddys at their homestead, and I 
 am certain their manifestations are genuine. I was up there about 
 three weeks ago. Colonel Olcott is doing a good work there, and I 
 will say that he is correct so far as I was a witness of what 
 occurred." 
 
 " How many Shakers visited the Eddys?" 
 
 " Myself and John Greaves." 
 
 " How long were you there? " 
 
 " Three nights." 
 
 " How many different apparitions did you see?" 
 
396 THE CASE OF HENRY PHELPS. 
 
 " Between twenty and thirty men and women." 
 
 " Did you or Mr Greaves see any spirits of relatives? " 
 
 "We did not; nor did we care about seeing any. We were 
 perfectly satisfied with the manifestations that we saw. There was 
 no possibility of fraud. As soon as the manifestations began, 
 the spirits called us to the first benches. They knew us imme- 
 diate!)'. The materializations were very pretty. No Shaker spirit 
 came forward." 
 
 " Did you speak to the spirits yourself? ,r 
 
 " Yea, I did ; and got answers from them. I saw no person 
 that I knew at all. I think they were perfectly genuine materiali- 
 zations. Even if we had dectected actual fraud on the part of the 
 Eddys, I should still be convinced that the materializations were 
 genuine. It is not at all uncommon for the best mediums to 
 practise fraud. I detected a downright fraud on the part of that 
 boy Henry Phelps." 
 
 "Ha! Where did those manifestations occur? I have heard 
 something of them." 
 
 "At Stratford, Ct., about twenty-five years ago. As soon as I 
 heard of the manifestations I went down and visited his father. 
 Stratford was a quiet little place that was composed of retired 
 priests and deacons. Dr. Phelps was a retired D. D. His son 
 became a medium, and the manifestations broke out right in 
 the middle of this quiet village. His father told me that it 
 would have been better for him if his house had been burned down, 
 than that these things should have occurred. The spirits were so 
 eager after this boy that they tore his clothes off his back, and if 
 he went into any house in that village, they pelted it with stones 
 and broke all the windows. The father said, that as soon as he 
 saw me drive up, he was impressed that help was come. I took 
 the boy with me to Lebanon, The manifestation's by spirits 
 through his mediumship were wonderful. Yet one evening when 
 I was out driving with. him, he began making raps in the wagon 
 with his heels. He wanted me to believe that they were spirits. 
 I said, ' Henry, let this be the last time that you attempt such 
 tricks as that with me ' " 
 
 " What has become of him now ? " 
 
 " I really do not know. I have spoken about Spiritualism in 
 England. I spoke before a great crowd of the aristocracy, in St. 
 George's Hall. I told them that Spiritualism ought to be one of 
 the elements of a civil government ; that it would answer the 
 purposes of a police in the suppression of evil, and of an army and 
 navy in the protection of the nation. I said they ought to at 
 once get rid of their army and navy and proclaim England a 
 
SPIRITUALISM AMONG THE MORMONS. 397 
 
 non-resistant power, and then fall back on Spiritualism as a means 
 of national defence. See what a power I had over them then." 
 
 " What is your general opinion of these multiplied manifesta- 
 tions that we hear of in these days? " 
 
 "Itis the descent of Spiritualism from the Shakers to the world. 
 We had the manifestations first ; but we kept quiet about it, and 
 did not let the world know anything about it. But the spirits 
 promised us that there should come a time of manifold spiritual 
 revelations to the world, and here they are. It is infallible evi- 
 dence that the world cannot gainsay. Why even the Mormons 
 have had spiritual revelations." 
 
 " You do not mean to convey the idea that the spiritual mani- 
 festations confirm the truth of Mormonism ? " 
 
 " Yea, to a certain extent." 
 
 "Why, I should have thought Mormonism the very antipodes of 
 your belief. ' 
 
 " Mormcmism is much better than your New York Christianity." 
 
 Frederick W. Evans has filled too large a place in the 
 public view during the past thirty years, to require that I 
 should say more concerning him, in this connection, 
 except, that he is a man of decided intellectual power, a 
 skilled controversialist, an enthusiastic propagandist, 
 devoted to his Society, and possessed of excellent prac- 
 tical administrative powers. Seeing such a remarkable 
 report as the above, I thought it would be well to get his 
 answers to certain questions touching the Eddys, and 
 spiritualistic matters in general, and therefore addressed 
 him a letter, his reply to which, is as follows : 
 
 Mt. Lebanon, December 1st, 1874. 
 H. S. Olcott — Respected Friend : 
 
 Your queries of the 26th ult., are at hand. 
 
 " 1st. — Could you, as a medium, see the band of spirits controlling 
 the Eddy manifestations ; who were they, and of what moral and 
 intellectual degree of development?" 
 
 Let me answer evasively. I think the immediate materializing 
 spirits-are influenced — controlled — by other spirits, in and out of the 
 body. They who plan the labor on a farm, do not always perform 
 the labor. When mediums and spirits are interblended — mixed up 
 
398 WHY INDIAN SPIRITS APPEAR. 
 
 — with the physical elements ; and are not too intellectual or spiritual- 
 minded, materialization and de-materialization are most possible. 
 
 " 2d. — Did you see the evidences of a fraudulent intent and fraud- 
 ulent practices, in either brother ? If so, which, and to what extent ?" 
 
 I did not see the least sign of fraud, nor did I feel any during my 
 sojourn. There was no temptation to fraud, that I could discover. 
 
 " 3d. — Most mediums, in America, seem to be attended by Indian 
 " Guides," Why so? Because they are now in your initial stage of 
 development of 1S40?" 
 
 Because America is the home of the Indian. While in the body, 
 they lived much in the lower spirit world. When out of the body, 
 they go not far from the physical world and their old haunts. They 
 are of, and in the country — part and parcel of the earth, and are 
 attracted and attached to the matter of which earthly human beings 
 are compounded. Also, the Indians have a sense of having been 
 forced from their homes and hunting grounds on earth. They have 
 a feeling of want, like children whose earth-life was prematurely 
 cut off. Injustice has been done. Their earth-life is not yet com- 
 pleted. They seek compensation — may seek revenge on the pale- 
 faces. This is under a law referred to, Rev. vi., 9, " I saw, under 
 thy altar, the souls of them that were slain for the word of God and 
 for the testimony that they held. And they cried with a loud voice, 
 saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not avenge our 
 blood on them that dwell upon the earth ? " 
 
 When Shakers labor with such restless souls, they turn the edge 
 of their feelings from persons, to the principle which produced the 
 wrong. We would make a poor slave ashamed of his, or herself, by 
 showing that as did the slave-holder, so would do the slave, with the 
 same powers. 
 
 The rich and poor, the victor and vanquished, the Indian and 
 white, are, in the sight of God, all one, until faith and conscience 
 make a difference. Let civil governments understand that they do 
 not diminish the number of criminals by sending them to prisons to 
 instruct criminals younger than themselves ; nor do they get rid of 
 them by capital punishment. 
 
 " 4th. — Do you know whether materialized spirits intend to 
 address the public themselves from the rostrum, before this epoch 
 passes away ? And when will it pass away ? " 
 
 In an article published in the old Spiritual Telegraph, I foretold 
 that manifestations would yet be made to whole villages, towns and 
 cities. And in a book entitled " Tests of Divine Revelation," re- 
 published in London, 1871, I predicted that spirits would yet obsess 
 persons, and that the unspiritual Protestant sects would not be able 
 to exorcise them. 
 
SEVERAL QUESTIONS ANSWERED. 399 
 
 In Stratford, Ct., Dr. Phelps gave us the following statement : 
 " The ministers and deacons called a meeting for the purpose of 
 exorcising the spirits from my boy and girl. When assembled in a 
 room, each with a Bible in his lap, as a talisman, and while praying, 
 the Bibles were thrown by the spirits at the heads of the priests and 
 deacons, until they broke up the meeting. 
 
 " 5th. — I know a noble family in Europe, who assert that for more 
 than two centuries they have been caused the direst calamities, by a 
 wicked ancestor's spirit, who leads them to murder, arson, pillage, 
 incest, &c. Can such a fiend be reached by any influence within 
 the control of your society, and the cause removed ? " 
 
 A society of zealous, primitive Methodists, who could proselyte 
 the members of the family on earth, would make it easy for us to 
 lead that wicked spirit to confession and repentance. 
 
 " 6th. — Do the spirits, with you, feel interest enough in my work, 
 to admit me to one or more private sittings with you, so that I may 
 be furnished with important facts for the book I am about to pub- 
 lish ? If so, when, etc. ? " 
 
 You are welcome to visit us at any time for the why and where- 
 fore of our faith in spirits. If you come seeking a sign, I cannot 
 assure you that any sign, save that of a cross against Generation, will 
 be given. Nor yet do I know that a sign will not be given. The 
 times are, as the English would say, big with coming events. If you 
 look over my St. George's Hall lecture you will get some idea how 
 I feel. 
 
 The Graphic Editorial breathes the right spirit. Robert Dale Owen 
 and I belonged to the same school — the Hall of Science — in New 
 York, in 1830. We were both materialists. I related to him the 
 spirit-manifestations which converted me to Shakerism. I corre- 
 sponded with Robert Owen, his father, and he visited Mt. Lebanon. 
 Should you come, as per invitation, you may see the whole corre- 
 spondence. 
 
 The Graphic Intemieio was well done, with some mistakes. 
 " Shakers are all mediums" hardly conveys a right idea. " Every- 
 body in the house was obsessed," should be many, instead of all. " / 
 and another member went to Rochester" — it was New York, where 
 the Fox girls were holding seances. 
 
 Your statement that the spirits at Chittenden have not fed you 
 philosophy and wisdom, is somewhat remarkable. It goes to con- 
 firm our position, that, at present, it takes all the concentrated power 
 of the spirits to effect materialization ; because of general unbelief, 
 induced by general self-indulgence. Use should be the law of action 
 for all human beings. 
 
 If you go to those spirits, seeking, with all your heart to see some 
 
400 MORMONS AND CHRISTIANS COMPARED. 
 
 dearly loved lost one, with whom you had been in intimate social, 
 emotional relation, you will have no difficulty. But if you go, as 
 evidently you have done, deeply exercised upon principles, prying 
 into the source, the philosophy, the religion of the manifestations, 
 the Eddys will wish the Old Harry had you — and the spirits will 
 help them to send you to him. 
 
 Spiritualism went out from this Order. I have always supposed 
 it would return to this Order, and that then the manifestations, con- 
 trolled by a Christ spirit, would be attended with gifts of healing, 
 gifts of divine revelation, &c, and the organization of Pentacostal 
 Communities, simultaneous with corresponding changes in the Civil 
 Government. A new Heaven and a new Earth, 
 
 "And when will it pass away?" — (4th question, last clause.) 
 Never more. The two worlds will become like body and soul — 
 "there will be no more sea," — disordered spiritual elements, — 
 unclean spirits, out of which " The Beast" arose. And there will be 
 time no more, for all will be Eternity. 
 
 When I was at Eddys, the Witch of the Mountain came, in the 
 beginning of the seance, and delivered a beautiful panegyric upon 
 Shakers and Shakerism, without naming them ; depicting, in glow- 
 ing colors, the blessedness of those who, in earth-life, conquered 
 their passions, and lived in physical and spiritual innocence. 
 
 At the close of the seance, Mayjloiver, the Little Spirit, said, 
 " The Shakers, notwithstanding the reproaches cast upon them, are 
 the most virtuous, self-denying, and holy people, upon the face of 
 the earth. 
 
 I consider Mormonism a revival of ancient Judaism — the God — 
 Tutelar Deity, of the Jews, is probably the controlling spirit of 
 Mormonism. He allowed polygamy 2,000 years ago. Why not 
 now ? 
 
 But the Mormons have abolished poverty and prostitution ; and 
 from children and youth the " Social Evil." 
 
 Is not that better than New York and co-Christianity ? And 
 would it not be well for Christians (?) to stop persecuting Mormons, 
 until there are no poor — no hire of harlots — and those law suits 
 are settled ? F. W. Evans. 
 
 In 1856, Mr. Evans wrote to Robert Owen, making the 
 same statement regarding the outbreak of spiritualistic 
 manifestations among the Shakers, in advance of their 
 appearance in the outside world. During the sevenyears 
 of the continuance of the phenomenon, hundreds of 
 
DECREES OF SPIRITUALISM. 401 
 
 spiritual mediums were developed throughout the 
 eighteen societies. Says Mr. Evans, in the letter 
 referred to : 
 
 " In truth, all the members, in a greater or less degree, were 
 mediums. So that physical manifestations, visions, revelations, 
 prophecies, and gifts of various kinds, of which numerous records 
 are kept, and, indeed, divers operations, but all of the same spirit, 
 were as common as gold in California." 
 
 He says that these spiritual manifestations were of 
 three distinct degrees. The first, being for the complete 
 convincement of the junior members ; the second, for the 
 work of judgment, the judging and purifying of the whole 
 people by spiritual agency; and the third, for the minis- 
 tration of millennial truths, to various nations, kindreds, 
 tribes and people, in the spirit-world, who were hunger- 
 ing and thirsting after righteousness. And that spiritual- 
 ism in its outward progress will go through the same 
 three degrees in the world at large, being only yet in its 
 first degree in the United States. Spiritual manifesta- 
 tions, he maintained, were God's answer to the hearts' 
 cry of earnest men and women, seeking facts, not words, 
 in attestation of the "Word of Life." (See Howitt's 
 " History of the Supernatural." Ed. 1863, London. Vol. 
 II, p, 194.) 
 
 His affirmation of the genuineness of the Eddy mate- 
 rializations, it will be seen, is unqualified and positive. 
 He neither detected any fraud on the part of either of 
 the brothers, by his external powers of observation, nor 
 by his internal function as a seer ; in which particulars 
 he goes beyond the position I should be willing, at 
 present, to assume. But I must admit that, in my case, 
 I am hampered by the exercise of only the ordinary 
 
402 TESTIMONY FAVORABLE TO THE EDDYS. 
 
 faculties, and therefore may have contracted suspicions 
 that time would prove groundless. If they were not 
 mere suspicions, unsupported by what I consider adequate 
 evidence, I should not hesitate a moment in stating 
 what they are. If I withhold my unqualified endorse- 
 ment of the entire genuineness of their verity, in the 
 face of such an apparently overwhelming mass of evidence, 
 it would ill become one who desires to proceed to his 
 conclusions with deliberation, to throw suspicions into 
 the scales, which are trembling in the effort to find a 
 balance. 
 
 The files of many of the leading secular newspapers 
 furnish ample testimony in favor of the Eddy mediums, 
 and very little against them. Perhaps I should qualify 
 by saying, very little that is entitled to consideration. 
 There are many hasty accounts of single seances, either 
 by persons who went to Chittenden to find support 
 for pre-conceived prejudices ; or by others, who could 
 not see the forms distinctly enough in the obscurity of 
 the chamber, to distinguish their physical contrasts with 
 each other, and did not remain long enough to so famil- 
 iarize their eyes with the light, or themselves with the 
 features of the room, so that they might judge of these 
 peculiarities of form, stature and bearing, as compared 
 with those of William Eddy. 
 
 Strangely enough, Mr. Evans' views of the genuineness 
 of the Eddy materializations, find unqualified endorse- 
 ment by a sect, communistic like his, but its very antipode 
 in one of the fundamentals of belief, I mean the so-called 
 " free-love " society called " The Oneida Community." A 
 committee, consisting of Dr. T. R. Noyes and Mr. F. 
 
REPORT TO ONEIDA COMMUNITY. 403 
 
 Wayland Smith, visited Chittenden on the 2d of Novem- 
 ber, and upon their return published a report in the 
 Oneida Circular, the official journal of the Community, 
 which I have the permission of Mr. Smith to use in this 
 Chapter. He charges me, however, to give it as the 
 expression of his individual opinion concerning the Eddy 
 manifestations ; adding that the Community are investi- 
 gating Spiritualism through their own mediums, and in 
 time will give an authoritative opinion upon the subject. 
 After describing the committee's arrival at Chittenden, 
 their reception by the Eddys, and the materializations at 
 several successive seances, the writer says : 
 
 "The third evening Ilonto was dressed very prettily, having a 
 bright, phosphorescent diamond on her forehead, and another in her 
 belt. The light from these rose and fell constantly. Her skirts 
 were quite short, so that her stockings and moccasins were visible. 
 She played and sang, danced, and then asked for a pipe. Horatio 
 lighted his for her. She took it and smoked vigorously, so that the 
 light from the burning tobacco reflected on her features, enabling me 
 to see distinctly her copper-colored cheek, the bridge of her nose, 
 and the white of her eye. She smoked and played at the same time, 
 and was so overcome with this double intoxication of her senses that 
 she remained out too long. She suddenly handed back the pipe, 
 and started rapidly towards the cabinet, but just as she reached the 
 curtain, she collapsed into a shapeless heap on the floor, only one 
 hand being distinguishable. The curtain fell back over her, and in 
 half a minute she again appeared, apparently as bright and strong as 
 ever. 
 
 " At Horatio's ' light-circle,' the tambourine rattles ; the harmonicas 
 sound ; the guitar is held up in plain view and thrummed ; the bells 
 are thrown about ; hands of different sizes and shapes are thrust 
 through the opening between the shawls and passed over the faces 
 of the persons, sometimes tweaking their beards with unpleasant 
 force ; a hand minus the little finger is held up over the top of the 
 curtain ; a large black chair, which has been placed near the table in 
 the recess, is held out horizontally by a strong hand which grasps 
 one leg ; the visible hands write on cards, names and messages for 
 various guests, etc. At one time, I saw the guitar held up above the 
 curtain by its extreme head, the strings being turned towards us, so 
 
404 RING TEST CORROBORA TED. 
 
 that I could see their whole length, in which position it was vigor- 
 ously thrummed, and yet, though there was a bright light shining on 
 it, I could not see that any thing touched the strings to cause the 
 sounds. All this time the three persons in front of the curtain sat 
 motionless. The supposition that it was their hands which we had 
 seen, and which had caused the manifestations I have described, is, 
 from the nature of the circumstances, their position, etc., simply 
 absurd." 
 
 The " dark-circle " phenomena also excited the wonder 
 of the Committee. Says Mr. Smith : 
 
 " But the most wonderful thing was the ring test. The candle 
 was lighted, and we saw that Horatio was securely tied, as at first. 
 Then, by his direction, an iron ring six inches in diameter and of 
 three-eighths inch metal was found and placed on one corner of the 
 table. Elder Evans, who had that day arrived, was then invited to 
 sit in Horatio's lap and see that he did not stir. A lady also 
 changed her position, so as to sit in front of the Elder and hold his 
 hands. Thus there could have been no collusion or trickery. The 
 candle being now extinguished, the fiddle sounded for a couple of 
 minutes, when the light was again called for. The match was no 
 sooner struck than we saw the Elder still seated on Horatio's knees, 
 Horatio still securely tied. But the iron ring was now on Horatio's 
 right arm above the cord, and his coat had been taken off and lay on 
 the floor beside him ! Then the medium said, ' Mr. Frost, please 
 open the door for two spirits who cannot get in.' 
 
 "Mr. Frost took the candle and went to the door. Returning 
 instantly, he placed the light on the table, within two feet of the 
 ring as it hung on Horatio's arm. Then, while we were all looking 
 directly at it, we saw the ring drop to the floor and roll away I 
 had previously marked this ring, by scratching a bright spot on the 
 inside of the weld with my knife. I now picked it up, and found it 
 to be the same ring. When the ring was put on, and again when it 
 was taken off, Horatio Eddy, the medium, underwent a violent 
 shudder. 
 
 " I have now brushed hastily over the main facts which came under 
 our observation. I am aware that Dr. Beard, and many other skep- 
 tics, are exerting themselves to prove that all these phenomena are 
 produced by jugglery and tricks cleverly executed by the Eddy 
 brothers. But after studying the men as carefully as possible during 
 the four days we lived with them, I cannot believe them dishonest. 
 It would tax my credulity much more severely to believe that this is 
 jugglery, than to believe that it is what they say it is, the work of 
 
MEDIUMS E VER Y WHERE, 405 ' 
 
 spirits ; for to believe that it is jugglery, is to ascribe to these two 
 simple farmers all and more than all the combined skill of every 
 prestidigitator who has ever visited us. The most that the skeptics 
 undertake to prove is, that many of these phenomena might be pro- 
 duced by sleight of hand ; no one has been able to prove that any of 
 them are so produced by the Eddys." 
 
 Mr. Smith writes me that they " have found a very- 
 peculiar medium in Syracuse, N. Y., who gets direct 
 writing in a good light, under very satisfactory conditions," 
 and sends me a printed report of the visit made to him 
 by the Communists." Says Mr. S.: 
 
 " This medium is a broker, moves in the best society, and does 
 not allow his name to be mentioned in this connection. I suppose 
 there are a hundred such in the country, who will come out of their 
 shells by and by, when Spiritualism has become somewhat less 
 unpopular with the would-be wise men of the world." 
 
 Every investigator, of respectable social position, can 
 indorse the correctness of Mr. Smith's concluding remark. 
 I, myself, have met within the past fortnight in private 
 families, in different cities, two lady mediums, whose 
 Spiritualistic phenomena are of the most wonderful char- 
 acter, equalling anything I ever read of, except the mate- 
 rializations that are now attracting so much attention. 
 When the ban is removed, the world will be astonished 
 to discover how many mediums were long since devel- 
 oped in the circles of our best society. 
 
 14 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 SUMMING UP. 
 
 I THINK I occupy, at the end of this series of Chap- 
 ters, the only secure ground for any person worthy 
 of a moment's thought as an investigator, and it is 
 the one assumed by every intelligent physician in diag- 
 nosing an obscure case. I have reasoned by exclusion. 
 That is to say, I reject everything that happens in the 
 presence of these mediums which could be accounted for 
 on the hypothesis of fraud. The physician, placing him- 
 self by the bedside of his patient, first carefully notices 
 all the symptoms, and then proceeds with his diagnosis. 
 He says to himself that the trouble assuredly is neither 
 such, or such, or such a disease, nor is it included in a 
 certain group of diseases ; and so, telling off malady after 
 malady, he finally reaches either the precise thing he is 
 looking for, or, at least, such an approximation to the 
 truth as to suggest the trial of a certain class of remedies, 
 until the specific is found. 
 
 This is what the investigator of these spiritualistic 
 phenomena should do. Given a certain thing done in 
 
 his presence, he ought to attempt to explain it as: (i) a 
 
 406 
 
THE CREA T CONFLICT. 407 
 
 trick; (2) the result of some known cause — such as elec- 
 tricity, odic force, or the subtle influence that one person 
 has over the imaginations of others; (3) these all failing, 
 then he ought to observe closely enough to learn whether 
 some new, powerful, occult force is asserting itself; or (4) 
 whether relations had really been established between the 
 world we live in and the world we are tending to. Now 
 all this is within the scope of scientific inquiry; the 
 territory beyond belongs to the Church. It is for Science 
 to observe the facts, deduce the law, and define the con- 
 ditions ; for Religion to follow the moral causes in this 
 life to their moral consequences in the next. This is the 
 true middle ground upon which the two contending 
 powers can compromise in the great conflict that is upon 
 us, and the terrific nature of which is so clearly defined 
 by Tyndall, Draper, and others. Says Professor John W. 
 Draper in his most recently published paper, entitled 
 "The Great Conflict": 
 
 " Whoever has had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with 
 the mental condition of the intelligent classes in Europe and America, 
 must have perceived that there is a great and rapidly increasing 
 departure from the public religious faith, and that, while among the 
 frank this divergence is not concealed, there is a far more extensive 
 and far more dangerous secession, private and unacknowledged." 
 
 " So widespread and so powerful is this secession, that it can nei- 
 ther be treated with contempt nor with punishment. It cannot be 
 extinguished by derision, by vituperation, or by force. The time is 
 rapidly approaching when it will give rise to serious political 
 results." 
 
 " Ecclesiastical spirit no longer inspires the policy of the world. 
 Military fervor in behalf of faith has disappeared. Its only souvenirs 
 are the marble effigies of crusading knights reposing in their tombs 
 in the silent crypts of churches." 
 
 After noticing that the antagonism between Religion 
 and Science commenced when Christianity began to 
 
408 LA WS OF CREA TION. 
 
 attain political power, and denning the true cause of the 
 same to be found in the natural expansion of the human 
 intellect, through the irresistible advance of human knowl- 
 edge warring against the compression arising from tradi- 
 tionary faith and human interests, he says : 
 
 " Can we exaggerate the importance of a contention in which 
 every thoughtful person must take part, whether he will or not? In 
 a matter so solemn as that of religion, all men, whose temporal 
 interests are not involved in existing institutions, earnestly desire to 
 find the truth. They seek information as to the suhjects in dispute, 
 and as to the conduct of the disputants." 
 
 What a curious law of creation ; how beneficent and 
 wise, that every human want seems to be provided for at 
 the proper time ! Let any one thing necessary for our 
 existence, comfort, or progression fail, and some substi- 
 tute is found. When the forests in Europe were in dan- 
 ger of extinction, coal was discovered ; when the whale 
 fishery failed, mineral oil was struck in Pennsylvania ; 
 when the discovery of the iron ores of that region offered 
 us a new source of wealth, the uses of anthracite coal 
 were first learned by the accident of a careless laborer ; 
 when the progress of the world demanded the overthrow 
 of ecclesiastical imperialism, the printing-press came to 
 enlighten mankind. That not only dispersed secular 
 knowledge broadcast, but proved the most powerful ally 
 of the Church itself, in widening the boundaries of true 
 Religion. So, also, when the increase of population 
 called for ampler methods of communication by sea and 
 land, steam offered itself as the great desideratum ; and, 
 in the progressive development of the same need, the 
 electric telegraph came to unite all the people of the 
 earth together in a constant, heaven-descended tie. 
 
 In view of all this, who dares say that, at the very 
 
SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 409 
 
 instant of this " great conflict " between Science and 
 Religion, when the latter is looking about for better 
 weapons to meet the onslaught of her traditional foe, 
 this spiritualistic manifestation has not been made ? If 
 there is anything not beneath contempt in the phenomena, 
 they are calculated to arrest the attention of both antag- 
 onists — of the Materialists, because, if they are real, their 
 position is untenable ; of the Religionists, because, in 
 their verity they would find an impenetrable armor of 
 defence and an invincible sword of offence against the 
 opponents of Immortality. 
 v Dr. Draper says : 
 
 " The attention of many truth-seeking persons has been so exclu- 
 sively given to the details of sectarian dissensions that the long 
 strife, to the history of which these pages are devoted, is popularry 
 but little known." 
 
 And so we may say that the strife between Science on 
 the one side, and Religion on the other, has been so 
 bitter, deadly, and engrossing, that neither side has had 
 either the time or disposition to notice the rise and secret 
 development of modern Spiritualism, which, after twenty- 
 seven years, has now reached a point where it no longer 
 entreats but commands general attention. 
 
 The recognition of this fact is what first prompted me 
 to attempt the investigation of the alleged spirit " mate- 
 rializations " of the Eddy mediums, and the reader will 
 bear me out in the statement, that all my efforts have 
 been to interest American scientists in the phenomena 
 to such an extent that they would commence real investi- 
 gations, in comparison to which these of mine are but 
 child's play. 
 
 I am happy to say that I have succeeded. I have the 
 
410 INTEREST IN SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 best of reasons to know that not only one but a dozen 
 professors in different colleges read all my articles, dis- 
 cuss the facts, and are beginning to feel a call to the 
 work. And I am also glad to know that many clergymen 
 — so many that I would not like to state the number — 
 are, for the first time in their lives, opening their eyes to 
 the fact that " this materialization business must be looked 
 into." Within a single day of twenty-four hours, I have 
 received requests from three orthodox ministers in charge 
 of prosperous congregations, that I would try to have 
 them admitted to the Eddy circles, and one other was at 
 Chittenden a short time ago, and voluntarily wrote me a 
 certificate of what he had seen. 
 
 In a certain place near New York, I know of a congre- 
 gation of eight hundred persons, of whom, according to 
 the pastor's statement, three hundred are reading about 
 Spiritualism, and some are beginning to hold circles in 
 their private houses. The ministers of two of the churches 
 in Rutland, united with a large number of their most 
 influential fellow-townsmen in giving me an invitation to 
 describe, in a public lecture, the things I saw at the Eddy 
 homestead. 
 
 As a final and most conclusive proof of the general 
 
 interest, I need only point to the universal discussion of 
 
 the subject by the secular newspapers. Says the Rutland 
 
 (Vt.) Globe : 
 
 " Colonel Henry S. Olcott, the commissioner of The Daily Graphic 
 to investigate and report upon the Eddy "manifestations," has stirred 
 up a breeze throughout the country. Before his first letter from 
 Rutland appeared, the subject of Spiritualism had not been even 
 mentioned in the secular papers since the appearance of Mr. Crookes' 
 articles and Mr. Alfred Wallace's pamphlet in England set Europe 
 agog. Now the New York dailies discuss the subject editorially — 
 
 L 
 
NARRA FIVE OF FA CTS. 4 1 1 
 
 nearly all have sent reporters to Chittenden, and their example has 
 been imitated by the journals of Chicago, Hartford, Rochester, 
 Albany, and many other cities. Whatever may be the truth about 
 the Eddy affair, there can be no question that the public mind is 
 very much excited upon the question whether the spirits of the dead 
 return to us or not." 
 
 This from a Rutland paper which has all along reflected 
 the bitter and disdainful spirit of the community in which 
 it is published, is something remarkable. 
 
 Now these are results — positive, tangible results ; and 
 
 I may well turn to both scientists and churchmen and 
 
 quote Dr. Draper's language, with the change of a single 
 
 word, thus : 
 
 "So widespread and so powerful is this (interest), that it can 
 neither be treated with contempt nor with punishment. It cannot 
 be extinguished by derision, by vituperation, or by force." 
 
 It is the bare narration of facts that has accomplished 
 so much. I have confined myself almost exclusively to 
 such phenomena as have been witnessed by myself or 
 others. I have not attempted to inculcate any of the 
 doctrines of the Spiritualists, as I find them in the works 
 of Mr. Owen, Mr. Sargent, Mr. Peebles, or other writers. 
 Nor have I attempted to elicit from the talking spirits of 
 the Eddy band their views upon the laws of their own 
 existence and communication with us. True, it would 
 have been a waste of time to have made such an attempt, 
 for the Eddy circle is about the most unpromising of 
 places for that sort of thing. One goes there to see phe- 
 nomena, not to discuss philosophies. It was sufficient 
 for me if I could see one spirit materialized under such 
 conditions as precluded the possibility of self-deception. 
 That fact was enough to set the world to thinking, for it 
 opened up a boundless realm for scientific discovery and 
 
412 RESULTS OF THE INVESTIGATION. 
 
 philosophical and religious inquiry. Let us see how far 
 we have gotten on our way towards the truth. 
 
 In the first place, it has been proven that, after making 
 every allowance for fraud on the part of the mediums — 
 for Horatio's removing his hand from his neighbor's bare 
 arm in the light-circle, for his untying and rebinding 
 himself in the dark-circle, and for William's personating 
 every alleged materialized spirit that approximates to his 
 own height and bulk — we have a large balance of marvels 
 to account for. 
 
 We have the writing of certain names that the medium 
 had no means of knowing; the exhibition of detached 
 hands of various sizes and colors, some deformed by acci- 
 dental pre-mortem causes ; we have the simultaneous 
 playing of musical compositions by such a number of 
 instruments that one or even two men could not have 
 done it ; we have the playing of Georgian and Circassian 
 and Italian music by invisible performers, in response to 
 requests made in languages that neither the medium nor 
 any other person in the room, except the asker, under- 
 stood; we have the pulling of a spring-balance by 
 detached hands unlike the medium's, one with a finger 
 amputated, and the other with tattoo marks upon the 
 wrist, which, in each case, would prove that the medium 
 had nothing to do with the pulling ; we have had the 
 playing upon an instrument and the display of hands, 
 beyond the reach of the medium, and when his position 
 and movements were all under easy scrutiny ; we have 
 had the passage of a solid iron ring upon the arm of the 
 medium, and its transfer to my own, with both of the 
 medium's hands held by mine, and also the dropping 
 
RESUL TS CONTINUED. 4 1 3 
 
 of the same solid ring from the medium's arm to the 
 floor, in the light, with a lamp standing within two feet 
 of the medium. 
 
 We have had the execution of airs upon various 
 musical instruments in concert, in a style so utterly 
 unlike the best efforts of the medium as to preclude 
 the idea that he could have been the performer upon 
 either one of them; we have had, finally, the appear- 
 ance of a multitude of figures emerging from a closet, 
 where, in the nature of things, it was impossible that 
 any mortal person except one man could have been, 
 dressed in a great variety of costumes, and differing in 
 size, apparent weight, manner, sex, age, and complexion 
 from that person — to make no account of those whom 
 he might have personated if he had been supplied with 
 the appliances of the actor's art. 
 
 We have, moreover, and especially, seen some of 
 these figures dressed in Oriental costumes and speak- 
 ing Oriental languages, besides others who conversed 
 audibly in the modern tongues of Europe. Of the 
 appearance of children and even little babes in arms; 
 of the appearance of two of the former at one and the 
 same time ; of the speaking of words and sentences by 
 various children I have heretofore given such circum- 
 stantial accounts, and the substantiation of my state- 
 ments is so easy, that I cite the facts as among the most 
 wonderful of the proofs accumulated during my pro- 
 tracted investigation. 
 
 It will not escape the notice of the unprejudiced and 
 
 intelligent reader that in the above enumeration I have 
 
 not included one of the things reported by me which 
 14* 
 
4 1 4 SPIRIT- WRITINGS. 
 
 admits of doubt. I have omitted a whole array of so- 
 called "manifestations" which might be imitated by an 
 unprincipled and clever medium. 
 
 I omit some things that have been described in this 
 series of Chapters, such as the writing of names in 
 characters which are suspiciously like Horatio Eddy's 
 manuscript ; the drawing of objects in his light-circle 
 and bed-room ; the bell test ; the weighing of Honto, 
 which, nevertheless, I regard as a genuine test ; the 
 making of my two ribbon wreaths; the bringing of 
 material substances into the dark-circle, and a great 
 many more matters, not because in any one case I 
 have doubts amounting to conviction that fraud was 
 attempted or consummated, but because there is, in my 
 opinion, enough left to challenge the closest scrutiny, 
 and arouse the greatest wonder, after passing by every- 
 thing about the genuineness of which there can be two 
 honest opinions. 
 
 Referring to the spirit-writings, (so claimed,) of which 
 fac-similes have been given, it should be observed that 
 the imitation of handwriting in documents, instanta- 
 neously produced, is, like most other phenomena of 
 modern Spiritualism, nothing new. I have found, in 
 Lane's " Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyp- 
 tians" (Vol. I, pp. 362-3.), an account of the magical 
 performances of a very celebrated Sheikh, named 
 Isma'ee'l Ab'oo Roo-oo's, on the occasion of a visit to 
 him by two Egyptian gentlemen, one of whom was 
 known to, and indorsed by, the author. The Sheikh 
 being asked to show proof of his skill, complied. 
 
 One of the visitors asked that coffee might be served 
 
NO T FUL LY SA TI SPIED. 4 1 5 
 
 to them in his father's set of cups and saucers, which 
 he knew to be at home, a long distance off, In a few 
 minutes the coffee was brought, in the identical cups 
 he had named, or what appeared to be the same. He 
 was next treated to sherbet, in his father's own glasses. 
 He then wrote a letter to his father, and, giving it to 
 the Sheikh, asked that it might be answered. " The 
 magician took the letter, placed it behind a cushion of 
 his deewa'n (divan), and, a few minutes after, removing 
 the cushion, showed him that his letter w r as gone, and 
 that another was in its place." The visitor opened and 
 read the letter, and " found in it, in a handwriting 
 which, he said, he could have sworn to be that of his 
 father, a complete answer to what he had written, and 
 an account of the state of his family, which he proved, 
 on his return to Cairo, to be pefectly true." 
 
 I now ask the reader to refer to my report of the 
 Katie King affair, in Part II, and examine the fac- 
 similes, there given, of the specimens of direct spirit- 
 writing, obtained by me at two different seances with a 
 non-professional lady medium, which seem to be the 
 most curious and striking manifestations of the kind 
 on record. In the light of such facts as these we may 
 well suspend judgment as to the source of the writings 
 given to me through Horatio Eddy's mediumship. 
 
 That I am very far from satisfied with the results 
 attained at Chittenden is already known. This arises 
 from the fact that if barely a fair chance had been given 
 me to apply tests and prescribe conditions, I would have 
 made this work one of the most interesting ever written 
 in its array of conclusive experiments. There never was 
 
4 1 6 THE IN VESTIGA TION NO T FR UITLESS. 
 
 so great an opportunity afforded to the investigator to 
 obtain satisfying proof of the immortal existence of 
 human spirits, nor ever one so maliciously and ignorantly 
 destroyed by spirits or mortals. Mr. Crookes' investiga- 
 tions were limited by the tests he could apply to a single 
 spirit, or at most one or two more, while here were nearly 
 or quite four hundred encountered, nearly every one of 
 which ought, if their appearance had been regulated by 
 intelligent control, to have aided in the contribution of 
 something valuable to our store of knowledge. 
 
 But it is idle now to deplore what cannot be mended. 
 We have gathered together enough to point the men of 
 science in the direction which they should take. Enough 
 has been rescued from oblivion to show the church the 
 importance of neglecting no longer the chance that offers 
 to get proof palpable to sustain them in their defence 
 against the assault of the Materialist and the Atheist. 
 The harvest truly is ready, but the laborers are few. 
 
 There being no chance to fortify our philosophy or 
 improve our system of ethics by the teachings of the 
 Chittenden ghosts, it will be asked, as indeed it already 
 has been many times, of what use are these phenomena? 
 What do they promise to effect for the welfare of man- 
 kind ? It is not my province to answer. It suffices that 
 these are the phenomena — permitted to occur, in the 
 providence of God, or by procurement of the devil, as 
 you will — a positive, easily proven fact. 
 
 It surely needs no great discernment to see that if they 
 are not fraudulent they demand instant investigation. 
 And to the further question, why, if they are real mani- 
 festations, they are made in such a place, among such 
 
FUTURE USES OF SPIRITUALISM. 417 
 
 people and such surroundings, I simply reply that I do 
 not know. In other times it was a cause of reproach 
 among the Pharisees that Christ was born in a stable 
 among beasts, and was followed by disciples of base 
 birth, instead of seeing the light in some stuccoed palace 
 in the Jerusalem Fifth avenue, and having a company of 
 perfumed aristocrats at his heels. I leave it to the straw- 
 splitters to settle the question to their own satisfaction, 
 and content myself with recording the fact that the phe- 
 nomena of Chittenden are apparently real, at least to a 
 certain extent, and they cannot be ignored any longer, 
 v And now let me state a few facts by way of conclusion. 
 
 I have heretofore confined my narrative to accounts of 
 the reunion of separated families and the visits of friend- 
 ship made by the people of the other world to those they 
 love in this. I have reserved for my last Chapter an 
 incident that shows that the time has possibly come when 
 the trite adage " murder will out," is to have a terrible 
 significance. It is always so much pleasanter to dwell 
 upon the agreeable than the horrible, upon what attracts 
 and charms rather than upon that which startles and 
 appalls, that, I take it, no further explanation will be 
 required of the fact above stated. But if any other 
 reason were needed for the reservation of the story of 
 the Griswold murder for the last Chapter, it may be found 
 in my desire to leave upon the minds of a certain class 
 of readers a strong impression that, should the investiga- 
 tion of these spiritual phenomena result in the confirmation 
 of their verity, a most important source of aid to the 
 cause of justice might thus be discovered and availed of. 
 
 If materialized spirits can address audiences, as I have 
 
41 8 A FOUL MURDER. 
 
 heard them in the Eddy house, is there any reason why, 
 after a time, they may not take the stand in a court of 
 justice and testify against their murderers? What a day 
 to be remembered would that be when the fictions of 
 Shakspeare's imagination should be paralleled by the 
 facts coming within our personal experience ; when our 
 modern Hamlets, Banquos, and Duncans would stalk into 
 the presence of judge and jury and show their bleeding 
 wounds to the horror-stricken assassin. 
 
 Now, of course, this will appear absurd to the great 
 majority of persons who read this, and so it would have 
 seemed to me before I went to Chittenden and saw what 
 I did there ; but what does the reader say when I tell him 
 that on the evening of September 28th I saw the spirit 
 of a woman who was murdered on the night of Sunday, 
 August 27th, 1865, at Williston, Vt., by a New York 
 rough named John Ward alias Jerome Lavigne, by the 
 procurement of her son-in-law, Charles Potter? That 
 after her murder the woman appeared there with all her 
 wounds upon her and described the whole scene ? Does 
 that look as if it were quite so absurd to imagine that the 
 same thing may, one day, be seen in a court-room, either 
 with or without the presence of a " materializing 
 medium ? " It is prophesied by the spirits at Eddys' 
 that next September they will address the audience in 
 that circle-room in full light and with people sitting about 
 them upon the platform; why should not an equal effort 
 be made to deter from crime, and, if need be, punish it? 
 
 Mrs. Sarah Walker Griswold, a lady sixty years of 
 age, lived with her husband on their farm in the town 
 of Williston, and their adopted daughter and niece and 
 
 
HISTORY OF THE MURDER. 419 
 
 her husband, Charles Potter. On the morning of the 
 murder the Potters, their children, old Mr. Griswold, 
 and Potter's brother went to Canada, leaving with Mrs. 
 Griswold only a small boy, about thirteen years of age. 
 On Monday morning a neighbor went to the house 
 and discovered the body of Mrs. Griswold lying, half- 
 naked, in a calf-pen some rods from the house in a 
 horribly mutilated condition. 
 
 The surgeons "found wounds on the left side of the 
 head, fracturing the skull, which were undoubtedly 
 produced by some blunt instrument. On the right 
 side of the head were four or five contusions, probably 
 made by the same instrument. There were also several 
 stabs in the neck, one about two inches in length, from 
 left to right, and severing the right external jugular 
 vein. These wounds were evidently made by some 
 sharp-pointed instrument. Two cuts were found on 
 the back of the left hand, also on the back of the right 
 hand, and one an inch and a half deep on the left side 
 of the chin, passing to the right up to the centre of the 
 lip. The knees were badly bruised as was the left side 
 of the chest." 
 
 In due course of time the murderer was tracked and 
 brought to justice ; and the guilt of Potter being brought 
 home to him, he also fell into the hands of the law. 
 The artist has represented, in the picture accompanying 
 this, the appearance of the spirit of Mrs. Griswold when 
 she first came to the Eddy circle-room. When I saw 
 her she presented a natural appearance, and was neatly 
 attired in a white dress. On a previous occasion she 
 was seen by a friend who knew her in life, a Mr. P. P. 
 
420 THE VICTIM MA TERIALIZED. 
 
 Wilkins, of Winooski Falls (Vt.), who writes me that: 
 "Mrs. Griswold materialized herself and I recognized 
 her. She grasped my hand and presented me with a 
 flower." The motive prompting Potter to the murder 
 was a threat on her part to change her will so as to cut 
 off his wife and himself from any share in her property, 
 which she had accumulated in California in the course 
 of a long residence there. 
 
 The series of cuts relating to Honto, and the one 
 introducing Mrs. Pritchard in a group with her son,* 
 are designed to show that I am warranted in the 
 assertion that the exact height of certain spirits has 
 been ascertained by comparing them with that of liv- 
 ing persons. Here we have Mrs. Pritchard measuring 
 with her son, and the spirit squaw in such close rela- 
 tion to Horatio (whose height is 5 feet 11 inches), Mrs. 
 Cleveland (5 feet 7 inches), Mr. Pritchard (5 feet 
 5 inches), and Mr. Ralph, of Utica, N. Y., that even if 
 I had never seen her standing with her back against 
 my scale affixed to the wall, at either side of the cabinet- 
 door, I need have been at no loss to discover that she 
 bears no resemblance in this particular to William Eddy, 
 whose height (5 feet 9 inches) and weight (179 lbs.) 
 have already been stated. If more has been said of this 
 girl in these Chapters than of any other single spirit, it 
 is because she has been oftener seen and more closely 
 noticed. She holds the same relation to the Eddy 
 circles, in frequency and variety of her appearances 
 and acts, as does Katie King to the circles of Mr. and 
 Mrs. Holmes, of Philadelphia. It is not true that she 
 
 * See Page 265. 
 
FAREWELL TO CHITTENDEN. 423 
 
 is always the first spirit to appear, nor that she appears 
 every evening, as the attentive reader will recollect ; 
 but she causes more of a sensation than almost any 
 other of the weird visitors at the Chittenden seances by 
 the vivacity of her performances, her thorough enjoy- 
 ment of the situation, and her great flow of animal 
 spirits. If it is ever discovered that she and her 
 medium are identical, I shall have to confess that there 
 are possibilities of deception in the transformation of 
 personal appearance within the reach of this Vermont 
 farmer, beyond anything I ever read of since the tales 
 Qf the Yogiswara and Peruvian sorcerers, and of Zilto, 
 the necromancer of the Court of King Wenceslaus, at 
 once excited my wonder and aroused my skepticism. 
 
 And now I turn my face away from Chittenden, and 
 close the record of my interesting experiences at that 
 place ; leaving each reader to digest the facts, and form 
 a belief for himself. I doubt if three more memorable 
 months were ever passed by any one ; and in future 
 years I shall never be able to recall the secluded farm- 
 house and its ghostly memories, without thinking of 
 Tom Hood's verse: 
 
 " And over all there hung a shade of fear, 
 A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
 And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, j 
 The place is haunted." 
 
fW 
 
PART II. 
 
 THE KATIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 I HAVE stated, in the Preface to this volume, the 
 circumstances under which my investigation of the 
 Katie King fiasco, in the city of Philadelphia, was 
 undertaken. When I expressed the hope (see Page 
 385) that some unbiased person would investigate the 
 case, under proper test conditions, it was farthest from my 
 thoughts that I would be the one selected for the dis- 
 agreeable task. I had neither set myself up as an 
 inquirer into the general facts of Spiritualism, nor was 
 it a part of my plan to embrace any comprehensive sur- 
 vey of the subject within the limits of this work. The 
 Eddy manifestations were my theme, and such other 
 matters as I might introduce were intended either to aid 
 in arriving at a just opinion concerning their genuine- 
 ness, or, at the most, to show how the phenomenon of 
 u materialization," was regarded by the leaders of opinion 
 in this country. 
 
 But, when the Philadelphia journals heralded the fact 
 that Katie King was no spirit, nor Nelson Holmes and 
 his wife mediums, I was at once importuned, by many 
 respected correspondents, to institute such an inquiry 
 into the facts as might reveal the exact truth to that 
 great body of the public who had relied implicitly upon 
 the reports of Mr. Owen and General Lippitt, and 
 adopted a belief in the actuality of the so-called 
 materializations. 
 
 These requests at last became so numerous and so 
 425 
 
426 THE KA TIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 urgent that I could no longer doubt as to my duty in the 
 premises. I was perfectly aware of the difficulty I should 
 experience in sifting the truth out of the multitude of 
 conflicting reports that had reached the public ear 
 through the newspapers. I knew the thanklessness of 
 the task — the certainty of abuse by one party or the 
 other, whatever decision I might give — the misrepresen- 
 tation of my motives — the challenging of my conclusions. 
 I was only too well assured that a skeptical public 
 would neither be grateful if I should prove the " materi- 
 alizations " fraudulent, nor friendly if my tests should 
 have an opposite result. I knew all this, but, neverthe- 
 less, did not alter my determination, for several reasons. 
 In the first place, I recollected the words of M. Bailly, 
 the great Frenchman : " In every error there is a kernel 
 of truth : let us seek to detach that kernel from the 
 envelop that hides it from our eyes " ; secondly, I had 
 Mr. Owen's own authority for it that " when a man of 
 honest motive, seeking only the truth, plainly and impar- 
 tially narrates his experience, that which he says usually 
 bears with it to the upright mind an internal warrant of 
 sincerity " (see his Footfalls, p. 55); and, finally, none 
 but moral cowards hesitate to perform their duty, because 
 of possible personal consequences. So, on or about the 
 27th of December, 1874, I addressed a letter to the Hon. 
 Robert Dale Owen, in which I stated that if Mr. and 
 Mrs. Holmes were willing to submit their mediumship to 
 the proof, and would agree to place themselves under 
 such test conditions as I might prescribe, I would come 
 to Philadelphia and make the investigation. 
 
 I received, by return mail, a letter from Mr. Owen, in 
 which that most respected and honorable gentleman was 
 good enough to express himself as follows : 
 
 "I am rejoiced at your proposal, and shall always hold myself 
 your debtor for having made it. Accepted or rejected, proving or 
 disproving the materializing powers of the mediums, it can eventuate 
 only in good." 
 
 The letter covered the desired invitation from the 
 mediums ; which was in the following language : 
 
 No. 825 Tenth Street, 
 Philadelphia, December 28th, 1874. ; 
 Dear Sir : — 
 
 The undersigned, being willing to afford to intelligent and impar- 
 tial investigators proofs of the reality of our mediumship, and, 
 
PREPARING FOR IVOR A'. 427 
 
 especially, of the appearance of materialized spirit-forms through 
 
 the same, and having confidence in your ability, and disposition to 
 
 do equal justice, hereby invite you to attend our seances, and agree 
 
 to submit to such reasonable scientific test conditions as you may 
 
 prescribe. 
 
 (Signed.) Jennie Holmes, 
 
 for self, and Mr. Neeson Holmes, absent. 
 
 To Colonel H. S. Olcott. 
 
 Upon the 29th, I notified Mrs. Holmes that the invi- 
 tation was accepted; and, upon the following Tuesday 
 ( January 5th), I was in Philadelphia, ready to begin. I 
 found, however, that Mrs. Holmes was at her husband's 
 place in Vineland, N. J., where he was lying very ill 
 with a hemorrhage, and that she would not be in town 
 until the following week. I concluded, therefore, to 
 employ the interval of time in possessing myself of all 
 the attainable facts of the case, and, to this end, sought 
 interviews both with the principal parties through whose 
 instrumentality the alleged expose had been made, 
 and with those who still had confidence in the honest 
 mediumship of the Holmeses. 
 
 I obtained from both sides such documents as might 
 assist me in arriving at a correct judgment. Among 
 them were original letters from Mr. Holmes to various 
 correspondents ; letters from the pseudo Katie King ; 
 notes written by the alleged spirit to Mr. Owen, to Dr. 
 Adolph Fellger, and to Mrs. R. K. Stoddard, at various 
 times during last Summer, and handed to them through 
 the cabinet-window ; the original manuscript of the com- 
 munication supposed at the time to have been written 
 to Mr. Owen by the detached spirit-hand of Frederick. 
 W. Robertson, but now alleged to be a fraud and decep- 
 tion ; and, finally, files of the Philadelphia newspapers, 
 containing the details of the alleged expose. I tried to 
 secure a personal interview with the woman who pre- 
 tended to have personated Katie King and deceived the 
 public, but was unsuccessful ; it being asserted, falsely, 
 as I afterward discovered, that she was not in town, nor 
 was her whereabouts known. 
 
 That my readers may understand the nature of the 
 problem presented to me for solution, it will be necessary 
 for me to make a brief statement of facts. 
 
 " In May, 1874," according to a pamphlet issued by 
 Dr. Henry T. Child, a Philadelphia Spiritualist, " a spirit 
 
428 THE KA TIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 was materialized" at the seances of Mr. Nelson Holmes 
 and his wife, Mrs. Jennie Holmes, " and appeared at the 
 aperture of the cabinet in which Mr. Holmes was sitting, 
 who gave the name of ' Katie King.' Several other 
 spirits appeared, some of whom were recognized." On 
 the 20th of the same month, the author tells us, the 
 spirit of John King, Katie's father, also made its appear- 
 ance and was identified. Dr. Child saw him, and " con- 
 versed with him for some time." The spirit, moreover, 
 expressed a wish that the Doctor would write out a 
 correct account of his, (King's) earth-life, from his dicta- 
 tion. He informed him that he had known him (Dr. 
 Child), for years " as a writer and worker," that his 
 guides had been at first quite reluctant to have him, 
 (King), come, lest he should take the Doctor " out of the 
 earth-form," but that no harm should result if the Doctor 
 would only set to work to write out the ex-buccaneer's 
 autobiography. The result of this colloquy was, as Dr. 
 Child informs us in his Preface, that he gave an hour 
 in private each day to John and Katie, and " received 
 from them " the narratives embodied in the pamphlet in 
 question. 
 
 It will be observed that our author unqualifiedly 
 asserts two facts; (i) That the materialized spirits of the 
 man John King, alias Sir Henry Morgan, and the girl 
 Katie King appeared at the seances of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Holmes ; and (2) that the same spirits visited him 
 an hour each day, and dictated the autobiographical 
 narratives which compose the pamphlet to which 
 allusion has been made. 
 
 Upon examination, these narratives prove to be very 
 explicit and circumstantial accounts of the earthly 
 experiences of the man and girl ; the manner of their 
 deaths ; their experiences and progress in the world of 
 spirits; and their relations to the present spiritualistic 
 movement upon our earth. They are mutually corrobo- 
 rative, and at the same time, indorse the reality of the 
 spirit appearances in the Holmes cabinet. To make 
 his certification of their genuineness and importance 
 more emphatic, Dr. Child uses, in the concluding 
 paragraph of his Preface, the following language : 
 
 " These narratives, and especially the concluding one, enter quite 
 fully into an explanation of the spiritual manifestations. The 
 statements are of a profound character, and the •writer, as an aman- 
 ftensis, asks for them the most candid and deliberate consideration." 
 
KA TIE 'S "A UTOBIOGRAPHY." 429 
 
 At page 35, he introduces the narrative of Katie 
 King, (the same whom he tells us he saw so often at 
 the Holmes seances) with the assertion that " On the 
 fifth of June 1874, Katie and her father came to me in 
 my office, and after a brief conversation, she said, ' I 
 am now ready to begin my narrative,' and I wrote the 
 following: 
 
 " My Dear Friend and Brother : — 
 
 I should be very sorry if you inferred from the manner in which 
 I appear and speak to you and other friends when / am materialized 
 that that is a criterion of my present condition etc." 
 
 Here we have the positive assertion, by the Katie 
 King dictating to Dr. Child, in his office, that the Katie 
 King whom he had seen materialized at the Holmes' 
 and who had addressed him rudely, was none other than 
 herself; and the public was led by this assertion, as 
 well as by interesting articles contributed by General 
 F. J. Lippitt, to the Galaxy Magazine, of December, 
 1874, and by Mr. Owen, to the Alla?itic Monthly, of 
 January 1875, as well as by frequent contributions by 
 the latter to the newspapers, to imagine that at least the 
 Katie of the public seances was really a visitor to us 
 from the other world. 
 
 Such was the general belief until about the 5th of 
 January 1875, when a card was published by Mr. Owen, 
 to the effect that circumstantial evidence had come to 
 his knowledge which made it necessary that he should 
 withdraw his previous expressions of confidence in the 
 Holmeses. A similiar card was issued by Dr. Child, 
 who gave notice that, from and after that date, he 
 would have nothing more to do with the seances of 
 those mediums. On the 15th, Mr. Owen wrote me as 
 follows : 
 
 " You may have seen in the Banner of Light, or quoted from it, 
 a brief note of mine withdrawing the assurance hitherto given by 
 me of confidence in the Holmeses. An explanatory article from me 
 will appear in the Banner of December 19 (next Saturday). 
 
 I believe they have been latterly playing us false, which may be 
 only supplementing the genuine with the spurious ; but it does cast 
 a doubt on last summer's manifestations, so that I shall probably 
 not use them in my next book on Spiritualism. It is a loss ; but 
 you and Mr. Crookes have amply made it up." 
 
 I quote the above because the same in substance has 
 
430 THE KA TIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 been said by Mr. Owen in the public prints, and. these 
 paragraphs succinctly define his position at the time. 
 The promised explanatory article made its appearance 
 at the time designated, and set forth that the writer 
 had some reason to fear that the spirit Katie King had 
 been personated by a woman hired for the purpose by 
 Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, and that there was more or less 
 doubt if any of the apparent materializations had been 
 genuine. A long letter from Dr. Child was also pub- 
 lished, taking the same position. Of course the matter 
 at once acquired very wide notoriety ; the Philadelphia 
 Inquirer, at various times gave free and detailed accounts 
 of the manner in which the fraud had been perpetrated ; 
 and the patient and credulously skeptical public for the 
 thousandth time thanked the gods that this spiritualis- 
 tic humbug was finally, and forever exploded. 
 
 There was still alas ! a flavor of aloes in the sugar 
 pill. The real name of the woman claiming to have 
 enacted the part of Katie, as well as that of the person, 
 through whose instrumentality she had been detected 
 and induced to expose the nefarious plot, were carefully 
 concealed. 
 
 On the 9th and nth of January, the Inquirer printed 
 what purported to be an autobiographical sketch of 
 " Katie King," duly attested by her oath, under her 
 pseudonym, before William B. Hanna, Judge of the 
 Orphans' Court, in the presence of William W. Hard- 
 ing, L. Clarke Davis, John G. Ford, A. C. Lambdin 
 M. D., Joseph Robinson and John J. McKenna. At 
 this same interview: "the robes, coronet, etc. used by 
 Katie King, by which name she must be known," were 
 produced and identified, and in the Inquirer of the 9th, 
 there appeared, in the editorial columns, the following 
 certificate : 
 
 " I hereby certify that I witnessed the signing of the above con- 
 fession of Katie King, and that it was signed, declared and affirmed 
 to be true by the person who appeared at the seances of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Nelson Holmes, No. 50 North Ninth Street, and No. 825 North 
 Tenth Street, as the materialized spirit of Katie King. 
 
 Henry T. Child M. D., No. 634 Race St. 
 
 This certificate was given four days after I arrived in 
 Philadelphia, and had announced to Dr. Child, in per- 
 son, that I was about to make a thorough investigation 
 into the facts, and into the mediumship of Mr. and 
 
AN INCOMPETENT WITNESS. 431 
 
 Mrs. Holmes, under strictly test conditions! It will 
 be observed that its identification of the unknown 
 woman as the supposed spirit Katie King is unqualified 
 and precise; — as much so, almost, as Dr. Child's pre- 
 vious certification of the identity of the spirit of the 
 Holmes seances, with the spirit who dictated her auto- 
 biography to him, in his office, during the months of 
 May and June, 1874. 
 
 Reading it in connection with the statements of the 
 pamphlet, it is difficult to escape a conviction that a 
 witness who could so place himself on both sides of a 
 case would be turned out of court as incompetent. If 
 Mr. Owen was deceived by tricksters into believing the 
 cunning wench of the cabinets a materialized spirit, no 
 graver charge could lie against him than that of sur- 
 rendering his caution too easily to his credulity ; but 
 with Dr. Child the case is far different. He was not, 
 like Mr. Owen, obliged to depend alone upon his 
 external senses for the formation of his convictions, 
 for, as he informs us in his pamphlet, he "has long 
 been subject to influences from the interior world, and 
 having been accustomed to see and hear spirits, has 
 learned, etc." This inner sense, this unerring instinct 
 of the soul, it was that told him, in the privacy of his 
 office, that the real John and real Katie were talking to 
 him, both there and at the Holmes seances, and his 
 certification of the fact gave force to the public belief 
 that the apparitions were real. 
 
 That a man so doubly sure, and a £eer so doubly 
 endowed could, at one moment, act as biographer for 
 a girl spirit, whose identity was made an hundredfold 
 more certain by weeks of familiar intercourse, and, at 
 another, certify that the veiled woman exhibiting her 
 tinsel robes and flummery coronets before a council of 
 editors, was the self-same phantom, makes it absurd 
 to place any weight upon his testimony, except as sup- 
 ported by that of others, or by documents that have 
 not been tampered with. This, of course, is said with 
 no ill-feeling towards Dr. Child, and he himself must 
 have already apprehended the position into which his 
 precipitate action has forced him before the public. 
 His friends, who know him best and feel assured of his 
 personal integrity, may charge him only with a shock- 
 ing lack of discretion; but the outside world, who are 
 never nice (and alas ! too often unjust) in their estimate 
 
432 THE KA TIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 of motives, are quite as likely as not to find their expla- 
 nation for this change of front in the promise or 
 realization of personal advantage ; which, for aught I 
 can prove, may be the very opposite of the truth. 
 
 While this witness is upon the stand, one question 
 must be asked : If the Katie autobiography was dictated 
 by the same person who showed herself at Holmes' ; 
 and the signer of the Hanna affidavit is the same woman 
 who appeared " as the materialized spirit of Katie 
 King ;" and Eliza White was the one who swore to the 
 affidavit, then it must have been Eliza White who 
 dictated the Katie autobiography to Dr. Child ; or, no 
 autobiography was dictated ; or, the spirit-girl is a 
 reality, and Eliza is a liar, and Child's later certificate 
 does not convey the truth : which of these is true ? 
 
 The voluminous document, so strongly certified by 
 the worthy Doctor, demands a brief analysis at this 
 point. It comprises a personal narrative, and numerous 
 letters from Mr. Holmes and one from his wife to the 
 pseudonymous Katie King. 
 
 The woman begins by stating that she writes " this 
 narrative in the interest of truth, and for no other pur- 
 pose than to expose the guilty ; from no prospect of 
 personal gain, and entirely without malice towards 
 any one." She tells us that she " was born on the first 
 day of January, 185 1, in Massachusetts,"' that she pro- 
 poses to be known by the public only as " Katie King," 
 and adds : " Like all others, I have, of course, a real 
 name {sic), but the public have no interest in knowing 
 what it is. I was married (foolish girl) when I was 
 between fourteen and fifteen years of age. I have one 
 child eight years old. My husband died upward of two 
 years ago, leaving me without any means of support, 
 and through my own exertions I have provided for 
 my child and my aged mother." 
 
 She was helped to a sum of money by " a very near 
 friend of her mother's," and with it set up as a lodging- 
 house-keeper in the city of Philadelphia ; in which 
 capacity she received Mr. and Mrs. Holmes under her 
 roof as tenants, in the month of March, 1874. These 
 persons began to give " their pretended spiritual mani- 
 festations," but Katie King did not appear until some 
 time afterward. A description of the *' dark seance " 
 of Mrs. Holmes follows, in which she asserts that the 
 speaking of spirits in audible voices, and the physical 
 
THE CONSPIRACY. 433 
 
 manifestations, are to be explained as trickery and 
 deception. The dark seance is followed by one for 
 " materialization," in which faces purporting to be 
 those of spirits are exhibited at the apertures, or win- 
 dows of the cabinet, but which, our informant tells us, 
 are only masks such as can be purchased in the shops 
 for " ten cents apiece." " They are placed," says she, 
 " in the hands of the medium and raised up to the 
 aperture, and by him manipulated to suit surrounding 
 circumstances." 
 
 Shortly after they were settled in a new house, in 
 Ninth street, the project of engaging this woman to 
 personate Katie King was broached by Mrs. Holmes. 
 Prefacing the confession with the remark that it is 
 useless to repeat all the conversation that passed 
 between them, although there might be two opinions 
 upon that point, she says: "I made up my mind to 
 play the part for a short time, hoping that something 
 better would turn up in my interest : in the meantime 
 I would be earning my expenses and doing no one any 
 harm." Her debut occurred on the evening of May 
 12th, her fair form being clad in a thin, white French 
 muslin robe, fastened with a belt, a white veil thrown 
 over her head, and her face and arms being whitened 
 by a free application of cosmetic. The cabinet had 
 been duly constructed with a view to this fraud, by 
 being placed in front of a door communicating with 
 an adjacent bed-room, and a false panel was made in 
 its rear wall, through which the pseudo " spirit " could 
 make her entrances and exits. The reader will please 
 note this fact, for there will be occasion to refer to it 
 again. 
 
 Everything worked to a charm. The face of our 
 fair but frail one was shown at the aperture to an 
 admiring circle, withdrawn, shown again, some words 
 were whispered by her, and " Materialization " was a 
 fixed fact. It became the talk of the town, crowds 
 came to witness the lovely apparition, and money 
 flowed into the coffers of the fortunate showman who, 
 she gives us to understand was none other than Dr. 
 Child himself. 
 
 We are let into the secret of Mr. Owen's appearance 
 at the seances, Dr. Child transmitting to him an invi- 
 tation from " Katie" to come and see her; much the 
 same as I, myself, was, at a later day, invited to come. 
 
434 THE KA TIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 He, like myself, was glad of the opportunity to see a 
 spirit, so pure and gentle, face to face, and in due 
 course moved to Philadelphia, and was at once addressed 
 in terms of filial tenderness by the fair ghost, and 
 reciprocated her affection. She wrote him notes, gave 
 him a lock of her golden hair (cut from a wig), received 
 presents of beads, and crosses, and flowers from him, 
 and generally, used his established reputation and ripe 
 scholarship as a means of profitable advertisement for 
 her disgusting trickery. Things went on thus from 
 bad to worse, dupes being made by hundreds, if not 
 thousands, and the fame of the spirit spreading through- 
 out the whole world, wherever books are read and 
 newspapers taken. 
 
 Meanwhile, remorse entered the soul of the actress 
 in this comedy of shame, and, in her pitiful story, she 
 paints us a picture of herself as she tossed on her couch 
 in the still watches of the night. " After the first two 
 or three nights my whole nature " says she, " revolted 
 at the idea of this gross deception * * *. The interest 
 manifested by the people kept increasing, which only 
 aggravated my sensitive nature {sic). I was often sick 
 at heart; I felt that I was guilty of a great crime. 
 Night after night was my pillow wet with tears ; the 
 heart would overflow with grief. I appeared to be 
 surrounded with a cloud of sorrow from which there 
 was no escape. Here was my helpless little boy, and 
 frail, old mother looking to me for bread. In my 
 troubled dreams I seemed to see their eyes riveted on 
 me, saying, ' Our whole hope and dependence is on 
 you.'" But the theme is too painful ; let us draw the 
 curtain upon this sacred sorrow of the conscience- 
 stricken woman ! Poor widow ! Sweet boy ! Help- 
 less old mother ! 
 
 Success naturally made both the mediums and their 
 ally bolder, and many pranks were played from first 
 to last. Among these she mentions the simulated 
 fading away and re-forming of her shape, by the help ot 
 black cloths; the appearance of an Indian-squaw spirit; 
 the apparition of the late General Rawlings, by some 
 scoundrelly confederate whose name is suppressed; 
 the writing of a communication to Mr. Owen, by the 
 detached hand of the spirit of that famous divine Fred- 
 erick W. Robertson; and, finally, the taking of her 
 photograph, in the character of Katie King, by daylight. 
 
FIBS AND FALSEHOODS. 435 
 
 But Nemesis was on her track, and her day of 
 detection came. A gentleman attendant at the seances, 
 whom she describes as having " a very mild, modest 
 manner," and whose name, in spite of her attempts at 
 concealment, has since been declared in sundry news- 
 papers to be W. O. Leslie, a railroad contractor residing 
 in Philadelphia, called at the house one day, while the 
 Holmeses were taking their vacation in Blissfield, 
 Michigan, (and she was in sole charge of the premises), 
 and interrogated her. She saw that he suspected her 
 identity with Katie, and she shuddered; as, indeed, one 
 of so high-strung a temperament might be expected to 
 do. But nevertheless she lied to him, and the mild, 
 modest-mannered man took his leave. Then how 
 " mean " she felt, " for she had told a falsehood, and 
 furthermore, the gentleman knew that she had. If 
 any of our readers," she ingenuously remarks, " have 
 ever occupied the humiliating position of having been 
 caught in telling a fib, and experienced the mental 
 suffering which follows, particularly to those who 
 have a sensitive disposition, they will know something 
 of the experience of the lady on this occasion." 
 
 But the gentleman did not press matters, and for a 
 time she was safe. 
 
 The Holmeses left for the West in July, and our 
 autobiographer says that by preconcert she followed 
 them on the 8th of September, reaching Blissfield on 
 the 12th, and appearing in her favorite character at a 
 seance the same evening. Blissfield being a small vil- 
 lage, she was confined to her room constantly for fear 
 that she might be recognized, and a weary time it was 
 to her. After a fortnight had elapsed a circle was 
 held one evening to accommodate a party from Adrian, 
 and an initial person named "Mr. B" caught her in 
 his arms, and came near exposing the whole deception. 
 But she escaped from him, through a clever ruse of 
 Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, and this brought matters in that 
 quarter to a close. She and Mrs. Holmes left for Cold 
 Water, Mich., and gradually found their way back to 
 Philadelphia, via Toledo. 
 
 Tired and disgusted with the whole affair, she now 
 "called on Doctor Child," stated to him that she was 
 penniless, asked him to help her recover some forty 
 dollars the Holmeses owed her, and promised that "if 
 he would comply with my request, / would tell him all 
 
43 6 THE KA TIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 about the particulars of Katie King, that I was fully posted 
 in the matter, and would tell him everything." But the 
 Doctor turned a deaf ear to her, which excited her 
 amazement ; as well it might. 
 
 She encountered Mr. Holmes at the Doctor's house, 
 and, a few days subsequently, entered into an arrange- 
 ment with that person, to write a letter to the former 
 retracting what she had said; for as she remarks 
 "Necessity knows no law: I had just ten cents in my 
 pocket." The letter was dictated to her by Holmes, 
 and by her mailed to an acquaintance in Massachusetts, 
 to be re-mailed thence to Doctor Child, and thus convey 
 to him the impression that she was far away from 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 She no longer lived under the same roof with the 
 Holmes family, and one day was surprised by a visit 
 from the " mild and modest " Mr. Leslie, who taxed 
 her outright with having played the part of Katie, and 
 offered her pecuniary assistance, — "substantial aid," she 
 calls it; and adds that he put the question, "Now 
 please state to me how much it will take to relieve you 
 from your present embarrassment." This sort of argu- 
 ment proved as efficacious as it had before on various 
 occasions, when advanced by Holmes; and, one by one, 
 she produced the stock of crosses, beads, and jewelry, 
 which she had accumulated in her character-part by 
 the donations of admiring visitors at the seances. 
 
 The concluding scene of the comedy was soon played. 
 On the evening of the 5th of December, a mock seance 
 was held, at which she enacted for Mr. Owen, Dr. 
 Child, and two others, the " business " of her spirit role, 
 and Mr. Owen's card was forthwith given to the public. 
 It is safe to say that no document connected with this 
 subject ever made a greater sensation. It was a stag- 
 gering blow, not only to the great multitude of luke- 
 warm investigators, but also to Mr. Owen's warmest 
 personal friends. These latter could not forgive his 
 making so unqualified a recantation of all his previous 
 guarantees of the value of his experiments with these 
 mediums, without, at least, devoting some time to 
 putting their mediumship to the proof, and so discover- 
 ing and separating the true manifestations from the 
 false. 
 
 I have thus rapidly sketched the story of this woman, 
 so as to compress within these few pages the substance 
 
POINTS. 437 
 
 of a statement which occupies thirteen columns of solid 
 type in the Inquirer. The salient points of her pre- 
 tended revelation may be stated as follows : 
 
 (i) She says she was born on the first of January, 
 1851. 
 
 (2) She has a real name, but the public have no 
 interest in knowing it. 
 
 (3) She is a widow ; her husband having died two 
 years ago. 
 
 (4) The mediumship of Mr. and Mrs. Holmes is a 
 gross misrepresentation in toto, not only the pretended 
 " materializations " being fictitious, but also the phe- 
 nomena which occur in their dark seances. 
 
 (5) As early as May, 1874, she began to personate 
 Katie King, in a trick walnut cabinet, provided with 
 movable boards in the back, by which she entered it 
 from an adjoining bed-chamber. 
 
 (6) The notes given by Katie to Mr. Owen and 
 others were written by her. 
 
 (7) The locks of hair given by her to various persons 
 were cut from a wig she wore. 
 
 (8) She was burdened by shame and grief at the 
 deception she practiced, and the falsehoods she told. 
 
 (9) She played the parts of other spirits beside 
 Katie, and a confederate of hers appeared as General 
 Rawlings. 
 
 (10) The photograph sold by Dr. Child as that of 
 Katie King, was in fact her own portrait. 
 
 (11) She joined the Holmeses in Michigan, and 
 there played Katie to small but select audiences, and 
 was once actually caught in the arms of a skeptical 
 investigator. 
 
 (12) She offered to divulge the fraud to Dr. Child, 
 if he would pay her, or cause the Holmeses to pay her, 
 a sum of money. 
 
 (13) She resumed the criminal relations of conspiracy 
 with Holmes, and in pursuance thereof wrote the letter 
 to Child retracting her previous assertions to him. 
 
 (14) She finally was offered money by her Unknown 
 to expose the swindle, accepted the proposition, and 
 gave, on the evening of December 5 th, a mock seance. 
 It should be stated, further, that, both at this seance, 
 and at an interview with Mr. Owen and others, the 
 next day, she was so closely veiled that no one had a 
 glimpse of her features. " Katie was so completely 
 
438 THE KA TIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 disguised," says she, "no one would have recognized her 
 as the same who had personated the spirit" 
 
 The italics are mine, and are designed to call atten- 
 tion to a performance wholly in keeping with her 
 behavior throughout this affair. In the concealment 
 of her name ; the concealment of the name of the per- 
 son designated in her autobiography as an " amateur 
 detective/' since asserted to be Mr. Leslie; in the veil- 
 ing of her face at the mock-seance and subsequent 
 interview; worst of all, in the swearing to her affidavit 
 under the cover of an alias, we have conduct that is 
 calculated to make us view with the greatest suspicion 
 both the veracity of her statements, and the motives 
 actuating her to make them. When we add to this the 
 alleged fact of her concealment in Philadelphia, while 
 pretending to be elsewhere, at the time of my visit, 
 and the failure of my attempt to get a sight of her, 
 such confidence as might have been generously 
 accorded to the story of a self-confessed swindler, liar 
 and cheat is wholly destroyed. 
 
 A person paraded before the public in such a charac- 
 ter as she assumes, must of course expect to be closely 
 criticised, and have inquiry made into her antecedents; 
 for her reputation for truth, and her moral character 
 have a most important bearing upon the question 
 whether her tale shall be believed. The word of 
 states' witnesses is always taken with great caution, 
 and few juries are disposed to deprive an accused per- 
 son of liberty or life upon such testimony, when 
 unsupported. 
 
 I am sorry to say that an investigation into the per- 
 sonal history of this woman discloses little to her credit, 
 and much to the contrary. Her real name is Eliza 
 Trances White, but she is said to have passed under a 
 number of aliases, at various times. Her family name is 
 Potter, and she was born in Lee, Massachusetts, appar- 
 ently long before the date sworn to in her pretended 
 autobiography. Her father, a stone-cutter by trade, 
 moved to Canton, Connecticut, and died there. Her 
 mother and the rest of the family were then thrown upon 
 the bounty of Wilson B. White, commonly called " Bub " 
 White, and took up their abode in the town of Winsted. 
 Eliza lived with White for some ten or twelve years, and 
 bore him a son, but I have been unable to ascertain 
 whether they were married. 
 
A BOGUS WIDOW. 439 
 
 At the outbreak of the war, he enlisted in the 19th 
 Connecticut Volunteers, a Heavy Artillery regiment, as 
 Drum Major, and Eliza joined him in the defences of 
 Washington City, where she cooked ior an officers' mess, 
 and worked so hard to support herself as to gain the 
 commendation of her husband's superiors. After a lapse 
 of a year and a half, the regiment was ordered to the 
 front, and Eliza is reported to have abandoned herself to 
 a life of immorality in Alexandria. Upon the return of 
 the regiment, at the close of the war, White settled down 
 in Winsted, and became the proprietor of a low drink- 
 ing-saloon called the "Rock House." He also traveled 
 with a " side-show " of natural curiosities and clog- 
 dancers and ballad-singers, and Eliza took part in both 
 dancing and singing. 
 
 The Winsted Press says of her : 
 
 " It seems that Katie has been known here as the wife of Mr. 
 Wilson B. White. She left him a while since, Winsted being too 
 'stoopid' and monotonous for her enterprising spirit, and, following 
 the leadings of her own sweet will, tarried a while in Brooklyn, then 
 in Manhattan and finally dropped down upon the city of brotherly 
 love as a soft, white, spiritual thing, direct from that other 
 * * * city of love, 
 Where saints and angels dwell." 
 
 The Waterbury American, another journal of the 
 vicinity, enters more into details, thus : 
 
 " Katie King alias Mrs. White also had some experience in the 
 variety show business. Some years ago her husband, familiarly 
 known as " Bub " White, gave a sort of variety entertainment, under 
 canvas, on the fair grounds in Litchfield, while the annual county 
 cattle-show was in progress. The show consisted of a wild-cat 'as 
 ferocious and untamable as a South American hyena,' a singing boy 
 ' with a voice like the mocking-bird's,' and ' Bub,' who was a violin 
 player, composed the orchestra. Katie King made her debut on that 
 occasion as a serio-comic vocalist, and as she was endowed with a 
 good share of personal charms, and appeared in a bewitching cos- 
 tume, she took immensely, and the country swains poured out their 
 'dime and a half like water." 
 
 Disagreement of a serious nature finally occurred 
 between the pair, on account of White's enforced support 
 of Eliza's family, and the interference of an intemperate 
 son of his in the government of the household. The 
 result was that, in or about January, 1874, she left 
 
 15* 
 
44° THE KA TIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 Winsted with her own child, a boy of nine or ten years, 
 and has been shifting for herself in Philadelphia ever 
 since. An uncle residing in Brooklyn advanced her some 
 $600 to set herself up in the lodging-house business, and 
 her meeting with the Holmeses followed soon after. 
 
 Her sworn statement that she is a widow of two years' 
 standing, is false. I have recently seen and conversed 
 with White himself. I pressed him to inform me if he 
 were ever married to Eliza, and he declined to answer, 
 remarking that " a man was not obliged to say anything 
 to criminate himself." Her statement that she is depend- 
 ent upon her own exertions for support, for herself and 
 son, he unhesitatingly contradicted ; for he says he is 
 worth considerable property, and is ready to provide for 
 her whenever she returns home and agrees to behave 
 herself. In fact, as we walked together through the 
 streets of the village, he pointed out several tenements 
 which he said were his property. Other persons corrobo- 
 rated this statement, and I found that it was generally 
 admitted that he was in comfortable circumstances. He 
 has a poor opinion of the woman's dramatic talents, and 
 does not regard her as competent to fill an engagement 
 in a " variety theatre." 
 
 Upon inquiring of a number of respectable citizens of 
 Winsted, I found that her reputation for morality was 
 not good, but how much of this is due to prejudice I 
 cannot say. Parties formerly connected with her hus- 
 band's regiment agree in the statement that her conduct 
 in Alexandria was not that of a virtuous woman. 
 
 That her reputed husband is not 'dead, as she alleges, 
 the following certificate will show : 
 
 [■ Winsted, Conn., Feb. 5th, 1875. 
 
 I hereby certify that I am personally acquainted with a woman 
 named Eliza White, whose maiden name was Potter ; I also know 
 Wilson B. White, commonly known as " Bob " White, the reputed 
 husband of the said Eliza ; I am also acquainted with her sister who 
 is the wife of James Adams, and also with her brother. 
 
 The said Wilson B. White is now and has been for many years 
 a resident of this town, but the said Eliza is now in the city of 
 Philadelphia, as I am informed ; and is, or was at last accounts, 
 living in the same house with a family of spiritual mediums, whose 
 names I do not know. 
 
 Stephen W. Sage, 
 
 Chief of Police. 
 
DAMAGING TESTIMONY. 441 
 
 While in Philadelphia, I met a gentleman named Allen, 
 said to be a Justice of the Peace at Vineland, N. J., and, 
 as I learn by inquiries made at Lee, Massachusetts, a 
 trustworthy person, who gave me much information as to 
 Eliza's early history, which, at my request, he put into 
 the form of the following affidavit : 
 
 " City of Philadelphia, ) 
 State of Pennsylvania. J 
 
 " Hosea Allen of Landis Township, 
 Cumberland County and State of New Jersey, a Justice of the Peace, 
 being duly sworn according to law deposes and says, that he has read 
 an article published in the Philadelphia Inquirer of January gth and 
 nth, 1875, entitled, "Katie King," "Her full history as related by 
 herself," which article is supported by the affidavit of "Katie King," in 
 which she states she was born on the first day of January, 1851, in 
 the State of Massachusetts, and that she, in collusion with Mr. Nelson 
 Holmes and his wife, Mrs. Jennie Holmes, did, at No. 50 North 
 Ninth Street, Philadelphia, during the last Summer, fraudulently 
 personate a spirit-form known as "Katie King," from the 12th of 
 May, 1874, and other alleged spirit-forms which appeared after June 
 20, 1874, at the seances given by Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, at that place. 
 And deponent further says, that he lived at Lee, Berkshire County, 
 Massachusetts, from 1S38 until 1863, that from 1842 until 1857 he 
 was superintendent of the Methodist Episcopal Sunday-School of 
 that town, that about 1846, Eliza Potter, (since married to a man by 
 the name of Wilson B. White,) became a pupil in that Sunday-School, 
 that she was at that time apparently about six years old, and that he 
 has every reason to believe she cannot be under thirty-five years, 
 that she attended the school at irregular intervals for six or seven 
 years, and continued to live in the town several years after she left 
 the school ; that during that time she was a very wayward girl, and 
 caused her father a great deal of trouble ; that she was so untruthful 
 that those to whom she spoke never knew when to believe her, and 
 that her moral reputation in other respects, was as bad as it could be. 
 Deponent further says that in June last, he visited Mr. and Mrs. 
 Holmes at No. 50 North Ninth Street, Philadelphia ; that on entering 
 the sitting-room on that occasion, he saw and recognized Eliza 
 W T hite (formerly Eliza Potter), who at once recognized him and 
 called him by name ; that he remained at the house two days, during 
 which time he saw and conversed with her frequently, and cannot be 
 mistaken as to her identity. That on the same afternoon, Dr. Henry 
 T. Child, assisted by a mechanic and himself, put up the black 
 walnut cabinet which was afterwards used at the subsequent seances, 
 that they only completed the work a short time before the circle was 
 
442 THE KA TIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 to meet on that evening ; that he remembers distinctly that Dr. Child 
 called his attention to the fact that the battens were being fastened 
 with forty screws ; that as the cabinet was then constructed in his 
 presence, it was impossible for any one to have entered it or left it by 
 way of the adjoining room, or in any other manner, without being seen 
 by all present. That just before the circle commenced that evening, he, 
 deponent, left his room in the third story, and in passing the door of 
 the front room, which is directly over the circle-room, he saw Mrs. 
 White sitting in that room, that frequently while the circle continued, 
 ne heard Mrs. White distinctly humming tunes, the front windows 
 of both rooms being open, and he also heard her walking about the 
 room. That five or six different faces appeared at the apertures of 
 the cabinet ; also, several hands and arms were thrust out of the 
 same apertures during the seance, among which "Katie King" 
 appeared several times. Thai the latter spoke in an audible whisper 
 from the cabinet several times ; that while she was so talking, the 
 singing of Mrs. White in the room above became so annoying as to 
 cause remark by those in the circle, and interfered with the hearing 
 of the voice from the cabinet, and that he cannot be mistaken about 
 the voice humming or singing being that of Mrs. White. Deponent 
 further says that it was impossible for Mrs. White on that occasion 
 to have personated " Katie King ;" and he further says that he asked 
 Mrs. White during his stay at the house, whether she had attended 
 the seances at that place, to which she replied, she had attended 
 them but once, and that she thought them wonderful. 
 
 " In Testimony whereof, I hereunto set my hand and affix the 
 seal this 22d day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousapd 
 eight hundred and seventy-five. 
 
 HOSEA ALLEN, Esqr." 
 , " Sworn and subscribed this 22d day of January, A. D. 1875. 
 
 FRANCIS HOOD, [Seal] 
 
 Alderman" 
 
 This witness, if unimpeached, convicts Eliza of more 
 perjuries than one, for he not only challenges her age, 
 but also shows that, upon at least one occasion, it must 
 have been physically impossible for her to have been 
 down stairs personating Katie King, when, up stairs, in 
 the chamber overhead, she was making such a racket as 
 to disturb the seance while Katie was out of the cabinet, 
 among the spectators. I give this affidavit for what it is 
 worth, and those who know Judge Allen better than I 
 can decide what credence to accord to his statements. 
 I should add that Dr. Child's friends deny emphatically 
 that he assisted in putting up the cabinet ; and, on the 
 
THE KATIE KING CABINET. 443 
 
 other hand, will say that Judge Allen's story of Mrs. 
 White's being up stairs upon the evening in question, 
 has been corroborated to me by the statements of others 
 who were present. 
 
 If the reader will now refer back to Eliza's statement 
 that she began her personations of Katie King in a trick 
 walnut cabinet in the Ninth Street house, I will venture 
 a few remarks upon that head. 
 
 In her "Autobiography of Katie King," she describes 
 the cabinet as being made of dark, or walnut boards 
 across one corner of the room, and illustrates the same 
 by a diagram, which it is not worth while to copy here. 
 Now, it happens that in his article in the December 
 Galaxy, General Lippitt (a gentleman of the most unim- 
 peachable honor) describes the cabinet from which he 
 saw Katie emerge, as quite a different affair. He says : 
 
 " The cabinet or sanctum in which spirits were said to clothe 
 themselves in mortal forms, consisted of the following simple 
 arrangement : The bedroom door was left open at an angle of 60 
 deg. ; on the opposite door-post a second door was attached, which 
 came out to meet it at the same angle ; and when the two doors thus 
 met, the recess formed was obviously an equilateral triangle, just 
 large enough to comfortably contain the medium, Mr. Holmes, 
 seated in a chair. Whenever this little sanctum was to be used, the 
 light was excluded from above by a triangular piece of wood laid 
 across the tops of the two doors. This cover was lined on the 
 inside with black cloth, as were also the insides of the two doors. 
 The air being thus shut out from the little closet, the necessity of 
 the air holes through the wood partition was apparent. Through 
 the one of these two doors which faced the spectators, at the height 
 of some five feet from the floor, was a circular aperture or window, 
 about ten inches in diameter, at which the faces were to be seen. 
 A black curtain hung on the inside of it, which was drawn aside 
 just before a face presented itself. 
 
 The most searching examination of this sanctum, which was 
 usually made by invitation just before the sitting commenced, both 
 on the parlor and on the bedroom side of the board partition, failed 
 to detect the slightest indication of any trap, wire, or other arrange- 
 ment for the use of machinery or for deception. The first two or 
 three evenings I attended, I made a careful examination myself, 
 and on one occasion jointly with a professional magician, a pupil of 
 Blitz, who told me he was perfectly satisfied that " there was no 
 chance for any trick there." 
 
444 TIIE KA TIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 General Lippitt, in. a recent communication to the 
 Banner of Light, says that the cabinet Eliza describes 
 was not erected until the 5th of June, whereas his attend- 
 ance at the seances occurred in the early and middle 
 part of May. It scarcely needs an enumeration of the 
 wonderful phenomena witnessed by that gentleman — 
 such as the melting out of Katie's eyes, when she had 
 been too long exposed to the light ; the simultaneous 
 appearance of numerous little and big hands at the 
 aperture; and the identification of sundry spirits by their 
 relatives — to satisfy us that Eliza's pretended revelations 
 have no bearing upon his experiences. 
 
 I pass over, for the present, the remaining points made 
 in the so-called Autobiography, because the best answer 
 to them is to be found in the report of what occurred 
 during my investigation of the Holmes mediumship. 
 
 I cannot too earnestly press upon my readers the 
 attitude I am determined to maintain towards this whole 
 spiritualistic question. What I am in search of is proof 
 positive that the partial or complete materialization of 
 spirit-forms has occurred, and can occur again under 
 laws now occult. I have not, nor will I play the part of 
 the monchard, searching out the immorality of mediums 
 or the trickeries they resort to, except in so far as it may 
 be necessary, in the one case, to weigh their testimony, 
 and, in the other, to learn how their roguery may be 
 made impossible of repetition. It is nothing to the cause 
 of Science that ninety-nine times mediums have tricked, 
 but it is of prime importance to it to know that in one 
 solitary case there has been an exhibition of genuine 
 materialization. The one grain of wheat outvalues the 
 whole bin-full of chaff, for that grain may, some day, lead 
 to an abundant harvest, over the whole earth. 
 
 It will be found, therefore, that in this particular 
 instance, as in that of the Chittenden manifestations, I 
 will spend very little time in trying to discover whether 
 the mediums cheated often or seldom, whether Eliza 
 White glided out of the cabinet frequently in Katie's 
 costume, and whether the correspondence of Nelson 
 Holmes has been tampered with. I assume here, as I 
 did in Vermont, that the mediums c.an cheat, that they 
 will cheat if necessary, and that they are disposed to 
 cheat if the investigator should relax his vigilance for a 
 moment. And so presupposing, it would be the sheerest 
 waste of time for me to search back through the whole 
 
A FA TAL DOCUMENT. 445 
 
 American and English career of the Holmeses, to dis- 
 cover how often, if ever, they played upon the public 
 credulity. 
 
 But what I went to Philadelphia to discover, and what 
 I mean to discuss, is whether Eliza White's charge that 
 the mediumship of Mr. and Mrs. Holmes was a sham, 
 and their materializations a wretched fraud upon the 
 credulity of Mr. Owen and hundreds of other honorable 
 and earnest persons. 
 
 Our case is now nearly disembarrassed of irrelevant 
 features, Dr. Child's certificate to the identity of Eliza 
 White and Katie King having been shown to be worthless, 
 by reason of his previous self-committal to the contrary 
 fact ; and Eliza's own affidavit-narrative being inadmis- 
 sible in evidence, by reason of her impeachment by good 
 and sufficient witnesses. Both she and her indorser 
 being turned out of Court, the whole question of the 
 existence of Katie and John King is reopened, and we 
 must fall back upon the facts, I have been enabled to 
 collect, under my own test conditions, to ascertain 
 whether Mr. Owen and General Lippitt ever saw a real 
 spirit-form in the Holmes' circle-room. 
 
 If any further proof of the utter worthlessness of Eliza's 
 statements concerning the part she pretended to have 
 played in the Philadelphia comedy were required, it is 
 more than supplied in the following document: 
 
 50 N. 9th St., Philadelphia, Pa., 18 August, 1874. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Holms : 
 
 Dear friends : — I will try and get your things shipped by next 
 week. I could not see the furniture man to-day but will to-morrow. 
 Doctor Childs comes in here with Dr. Paxson, Mrs. Buckwalter, Mr. 
 Leslie, Mrs. Childs, and they hold seances and go on just as though 
 they owend the house. I don't think Childs is a friend of yours. 
 He don't act like it. All the time priying into evrything and all he 
 cares for you is to make money off of your mediumship. The man 
 that called the other day has called again yesterday. His name is 
 Leslie. He said " Mrs. White are you a medium." I told him I 
 was. He said I saw your advertisement in the Daily Item last June 
 but I colld to-day to ask you if you know anything about the 
 Holmesses as everybody says that it is you that is playing Katie 
 King. Now you are a poor woman and I can't see why you do it. 
 You look a good deal like Katie King and if you know anything and 
 will tell me all about it, several gentleman and myself well pay you 
 $1000, and stand by you and guarantee to protect you, and we will 
 
446 THE KA TIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 pay you the money in advance. We want to stop all this spiritual 
 business that is going all over the country and we will put the 
 Holmesses down if you will only tell me and my friends all you 
 know about it. I told him I did not know anything about your 
 affairs, that if you were not genuine mediums there was none. I did 
 not see how it could be a humbug as the people had tested the matter 
 in such a way and had published all over. He said yes I know all 
 that, but we think you are the one that plays K. K. and if you will 
 tell us we will pay you and stand by you. I told him I could not 
 tell anything as I didn't know anything. Soon after a man called 
 to see me about the same thing he does business 1210 Market street. 
 I think his name is Roberts. He came one night to see your seance 
 with a party of young men to tear the cabinet down and catch some- 
 body, but they had their trouble for there pains. He is the same 
 one that tried to frighten you by sending a lawyer to get his money 
 back. He talked a long time but acted very strange. I told him 
 same as I did Leslie. Now what does all this mean I wish you 
 would come back to this city. I think it would be best for you as I 
 don't hear anything talked off but K. K. and the Holmesses. How 
 funny that everybody should think that I am the spirit. How 
 absurd. But all this causes me great trouble and I don't like it. I 
 think I will try and keep the house a month. Mrs. Hannis, who 
 lives at 262 Madison Street, will go in with me I will try my hand 
 with her a month. Evans is at me all the time to know if I will 
 take the house. That $50 you gave me to live on and to take care 
 of your things and ship them is all gone, but I guess something will 
 turn up to help me out. Your friend Frarfk. Your friend 
 
 Eliza White. 
 
 State of Pennsylvania, ) 
 City of Philadelphia. \ 
 
 Nelson Holmes and Jennie Homies 
 being duly sworn, severally depose and say that the above is a true 
 copy of a letter received by them at Blissfield, Mich., in the month 
 of August last, from Mrs. Eliza White, alias Frank Stephens ; that 
 they have each of them seen the said White, alias Stephens, write, 
 and that the original document of which the above is a copy, is in 
 her handwriting, and the handwriting is identical with other letters 
 received from the same person. 
 
 And deponents further say that after they returned from the West 
 to Philadelphia the said White, alias Stephens, came to see them to 
 complain that Dr. Henry T. Child had not paid her for the rent of 
 the house No. 50 North 9th St., which deponents occupied before 
 going West, but which the said White, alias Stephens, took for one 
 
TEMPTATION AND TEMPTERS. 447 
 
 month upon her own responsibility, but with some expectation that 
 the said Child would see the rent paid if deponents would return to 
 the said house ; and the said White, failing to induce deponents to 
 agree to refund the said rent, which indeed they were unable to do, 
 significantly remarked that a number of gentlemen of wealth, includ- 
 ing members of the Young Men's Christian Association, were ready 
 to pay her a large sum of money, and she need not trouble them any 
 more. 
 
 In testimony whereof the said deponents have hereunto signed 
 their names this 25th day of January A. D. 1S75. 
 
 Nelson Holmes. 
 Jennie Holmes. 
 Sworn and Subscribed, this 25th day of January A. D. 1S75. 
 
 Francis Hood, 
 
 Alderman. 
 
 Here we have our frail Eliza asserting, in a very 
 emphatic fashion, in confidential correspondence with 
 her ex-lodgers: (1) That she has been tempted by- 
 Mr. Leslie in the sum of $1,000, and also by a Mr. 
 Roberts to confess that she played Katie King ; (2) 
 That she denied to both of them unreservedly that she 
 had ever done so, and asseverated the genuine medium- 
 ship of the Holmeses, but nevertheless Mr. Leslie 
 persisted in his suggestions and offers; (3) That she 
 does not understand what this all means, and hopes the 
 Holmeses will return to Philadelphia, and thus relieve 
 her of all this importunity. When we compare this 
 letter of the iSth of August with her letter from North 
 Cambridge, Mass., to Dr. Child, repudiating all knowl- 
 edge of fraud in the Katie King affair (which she now 
 avers was written by Holmes' dictation), we have very 
 strong prima facie evidence that her whole story of 
 having personated the spirit is false. 
 
 The Mr. Leslie she alludes to is no doubt the per- 
 son of that name who finally engineered the expose of 
 December 5th, for he was a constant attendant at the 
 seances, and no other Mr. Leslie has been mentioned 
 in connection with this affair. Mr. Roberts is a 
 nephew of Mr. J. M. Roberts, a wealthy gentleman of 
 Burlington, N. J., and a staunch friend of the Holmeses 
 from first to last. He informed me that his nephew 
 had acknowledged to him that an officer of the 
 Young Men's Christian Association of Philadelphia, 
 called upon him several times last summer, and tried 
 
448 THE KA TIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 to enlist his services to help break down spiritualism, 
 in general and the Holmeses in particular, but that he 
 had declined. Moreover, he has recently re-affirmed, 
 in a letter to General Lippitt, his denial, and protested 
 against his being included among the conspirators. I 
 know no more of the facts of the case than appears in 
 the documentary evidence, and leave it to the parties 
 interested to fight it out among themselves. It cer- 
 tainly will strike the public as strange that Eliza White 
 should so circumstantially describe the visit and 
 importunity of Mr. Roberts, if no such things had 
 ever occurred ; and the only possible explanation of the 
 mystery must be sought either in the personation of 
 Mr. Roberts by some other individual, or a deliberate 
 falsehood on the part of Eliza — a falsehood without 
 apparent motive. 
 
 In the interest of good morals, it is to be hoped that 
 Eliza's hints of the connection of her tempters with the 
 Young Men's Christian Association have no warrant 
 in fact ; for it would be regarded as an infamous out- 
 rage in this day and country, for any religious body 
 to resort to bribery and the subornation of perjury, for 
 the purpose of crushing out any other religious faith. 
 
 There is still other evidence going to show that 
 Eliza was not always, if ever, Katie King, for, on the 
 very evening when she was exploding the whole hum- 
 bug, by giving a mock-seance to Mr. Leslie, Mr. Owen, 
 Doctor Child and another, the things happened that 
 are related in the following affidavits : which, but for 
 burdening my report with redundant testimony, I 
 might have had corroborated by numerous other affida- 
 vits to the same effect. 
 
 State of Pennsylvania, ) 
 City of Philadelphia. ) 
 
 W. H. Westcott, being duly sworn, 
 says that he resides in the city of Philadelphia, State of Pennsylvania ; 
 that on the night of the 5th of December, 1874, he in company with 
 some fifteen or twenty persons was present at the residence of Mr. 
 and Mrs. Holmes, S25 North Tenth street, where a seance was being 
 held ; that between the hours of eight and ten o'clock on said night, 
 while Mr. Holmes was in the cabinet, he saw issue from the cabinet 
 the spirit-form of what is known to be " Katie King ;" that she first 
 came to the aperture, showed her face several times, spoke to the 
 audience, was recognized by many of those present, who had seen 
 her on several occasions at No. 50 North 9th Street, and afterwards 
 
DOCTOR FELLGER' S AFFIDA VI T. 449 
 
 she opened the door and stepped out among the audience. This 
 she repeated three times during the seance. And deponent says 
 that the " Katie King " who appeared on the said evening was the 
 identical spirit who had shown herself during the preceding two 
 months at the same place through the mediumship of the said Mr. 
 and Mrs. Holmes. 
 
 In testimony whereof the deponent has hereunto signed his name 
 this 25th day of January, 1875. 
 
 Wm. H. Westcott. 
 Affirmed and subscribed, this 25th day of January, A. D. 1875. 
 
 Francis Hood, 
 
 Alderman. 
 
 State of Pennsylvania, ^ 
 City of Philadelphia. \ "' 
 
 Adolphus Fellger, M.D., being 
 
 sworn, says that he is a practising physician in the city of Philadel- 
 phia and resides at Number 154 North nth Street ; that he has read 
 the foregoing affidavit and knows the facts therein stated to be true, 
 he having been present at the seance described. And deponent 
 further says that he has seen the spirit known as " Katie King " in 
 all perhaps eighty times, is perfectly familiar with her features, and 
 cannot be mistaken as to the identity of the Katie King who appeared 
 upon the evening of December 5th, for, while the said spirit scarcely 
 ever appeared of exactly the same height or features two evenings in 
 succession, her voice was always the same, and the expression of her 
 eyes and the topics of her conversation enabled him to be still more 
 certain of her being the same person. 
 
 Ad. Fellger, M.D. 
 Sworn and subscribed before me this 25th day of January, 1S75. 
 
 Wm. P. Hibberd, 
 
 Alderman. 
 
 Doctor Adolf Fellger, who signs one of these affida- 
 vits, is well-known and widely respected as a physician 
 in Philadelphia. He is beloved by all who have been 
 so fortunate as to make his acquaintance. Mr. Owen 
 describes him, in his letter to me of December 28th, as 
 " a popular and highly esteemed German physician of 
 this city," (Philadelphia), and his simple word would 
 outweigh a score of affidavits of your Eliza Whites. 
 
 Again, I have before me sundry letters written by 
 Mr. Holmes to Eliza White and Doctor Child from 
 Michigan, which speak of Katie King's having appeared 
 in their circles out there. On the 25th of August he 
 writes to Dr. Child that they held a seance on the 21st, 
 
450 THE KATIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 at which " Katie came and showed herself splendid," 
 while on the 28th he writes to Mrs. White instructions 
 about packing and shipping his furniture from Phila- 
 delphia. Clearly Mrs. White could not be in the latter 
 city occupying the house, and in Michigan playing the 
 part of Katie King at one and the same time. On 
 September 4th, he writes to Child, that " K. K. comes 
 to us better than ever, but seems troubled about some- 
 thing that we can't find out. What does she tell you ? " 
 And Eliza does not pretend, in her affidavit to have 
 gone West before the 12th of September. Who, then, 
 was personating Katie before her arrival? 
 
 The occurrence of the phenomena in Blissfield, while 
 Eliza was still in Philadelphia is, furthermore, attested 
 by Doctor Child himself in a letter of Oct to the 
 Religio-Philosophical Journal, of Chicago, and in this 
 same letter he speaks of knowing the woman, and being 
 able to declare that she was not Katie King. 
 
 It does seem as if there never was so tangled a skein 
 as this to unravel. 
 
 In fact, when I review the whole of the evidence in 
 this case — the assertions and counter assertions of 
 Eliza; the contradictions of all her material statements 
 by the Holmeses, and their plausible explanations of 
 the suspicious sentences in Mr. Holmes' letters to her; 
 the circumstantially minute descriptions given by Mr. 
 Owen of things seen by him, which no theory of 
 personation by Eliza, or any other mortal explains ; 
 the added testimony of General Lippitt; the recent 
 confession of Mr. and Mrs. Holmes to General Lippitt, 
 that Doctor Child procured Mrs. White to stand for 
 the photograph of Katie sold by him ; the fact that this 
 picture bears no resemblance to a portrait of Eliza in 
 my possession, which was taken after the " Katie photo- 
 graph ; " the rash certificate of Doctor Child as to the 
 identity of Eliza and Katie, after the fatal statements 
 in his pamphlet, and his astonishing self-contradictions 
 in his newspaper contributions — when I consider all 
 these, I confess that I am completely unable to decide 
 whether there ever was such a thing as a false persona- 
 tion of the spirit at all. Like the Comte de Gabalis, I 
 am tempted to say; "In short I could make neither 
 head nor tail on't." Nothing but a full confession 
 by the Holmeses to the fact, backed by corroborative 
 proof, will throw light upon the foggy subject. Their 
 
45 2 THE KA TIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 unsupported assertion would not alone suffice to con- 
 vict them, for we have all seen enough of mediums and 
 mediumship to know that "lying spirits" may just as 
 well now, as in Bible times, (See I Kings xxii, 19 to 
 23) control mediums, perhaps even to the denying of 
 crimes they have committed, and the confessing to 
 others of which they are wholly innocent. 
 
 Look at this very matter of the photograph. General 
 Lippitt tells us in the Banner of Light, of February 6th 
 instant, that the Holmeses confessed to him, on the 31st 
 of January, that Eliza stood for the Katie pictures. Well, 
 let the reader judge for himself whether this is so or not. 
 Here we have a copy of that photograph, and, beside it, 
 one given to me as a portrait of Eliza, and alleged to have 
 been taken since the other was published by Dr. Child : 
 
 Do they look alike ? Is there any resemblance between 
 the two faces in the breadth of jaw-bone, prominence of 
 cheek-bone, shape and length of nose, curve of nostril, 
 length of lower jaw, or shape of head — in a word, in 
 either of those salient features of a head and face which 
 emaciation does not alter? If I had been permitted to 
 see the shrinking affiant, I might better judge of the 
 fidelity of the two portraits, or either, to the original. As 
 it is, I can only say that the one which the public will 
 now see for the first time, was given to me by one who has 
 the best of reasons for knowing whether it is good or not, 
 and who assures me that it is the woman herself. It was 
 also identified by the Chief of Police, Mr. Sage, and by 
 other citizens of Winsted. 
 
 The best we can do, under the circumstances, is to put 
 the whole batch of contradictory testimony about this 
 entire case in a pigeon-hole, and escape out of this 
 quagmire of doubt upon the solid ground of fact, as 
 demonstrated by the experiments and investigations to 
 which I will now ask the reader's attention. 
 
 I reached Philadelphia, as before observed, on the 4th 
 of January, and called upon Mr. Leslie, Doctor Child, 
 Mr. Owen, Dr. Fellger and others. I took rooms at 
 the private hotel of Mrs. Martin, in Girard Street, where 
 our friend Madame de Blavatsky, was also quartered. 
 My acquaintance with Mme. de B., begun under such 
 interesting circumstances at Chittenden, has continued, 
 and recently become more intimate in consequence of 
 her having accepted the offer of M. Aksakow the eminent 
 St. Petersburgh publisher, former tutor to the Czarowitch, 
 
A REMARKABLE LADY. 453 
 
 to translate my Chittenden letters into the Russian 
 language for republication in the capital of the Czar. 
 
 I gradually discovered that this lady, Avhose brilliant 
 accomplishments and eminent virtues of character, no 
 ltss than her exalted social position, entitle her to the 
 highest respect, is one of the most remarkable mediums 
 in the world"."/ At the same time, her mediumship is 
 totally different from that of any other person I ever met ; 
 for, instead of being controlled by spirits to do their will, 
 it is she who seems to control them to do her bidding. 
 Whatever may be the secret by which this power 
 has been attained, I cannot say, but that she possesses it, 
 I have had too many proofs to permit me to doubt the 
 fact. Many years of her life have been passed in 
 Oriental lands, where what we recognize as Spiritualism, 
 has for years been regarded as the mere rudimental 
 developments of a system which seems to have established 
 such relations between mortals and the immortals as to 
 enable certain of the former to have dominion over 
 many of the latter. I pass by such of the mysteries of 
 the Egyptian, Hindoo and other priestly orders, as 
 may be ascribed to a knowledge of the natural sciences, 
 and refer to those higher branches of that so-called 
 White Magic, which has been practised for countless 
 centuries by the initiated. 
 
 Whether Mme. de B. has been admitted behind the 
 veil or not can only be surmised, for she is very reticent 
 upon the subject, but her startling gifts seem impossible 
 of explanation upon any other hypothesis. She wears 
 upon her bosom the mystic jeweled emblem of an 
 Eastern Brotherhood, and is probably the only repre- 
 sentative in this country of this fraternity, "who, (as 
 Bulwer remarks,) "in an earlier age boasted of secrets of 
 which the Philosopher's Stone was but the least ; who con- 
 sidered themselves the heirs of all that the Chaldeans, the 
 Magi, the Gymnosophists, and the Platonists had taught ; 
 and who differed from all the darker sons of Magic in 
 the virtue of their lives, the purity of their doctrines and 
 their insisting, as the foundation of all wisdom, on the 
 subjugation of the senses, and the intensity of Religious 
 Faith." 
 
 After knowing this remarkable lady, and seeing the 
 wonders that occur in her presence so constantly that 
 they actually excited at length but a passing emotion of 
 surprise, I am almost tempted to believe that the stories 
 
454 THE KA TIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 of Eastern fables are but simple narratives of fact; and 
 that this very American outbreak of spiritualistic phenom- 
 ena is under the control of an Order, which while depend- 
 ing for its results upon unseen agents, has its existence 
 upon Earth among men. 
 
 The occurrence of the phenomena I am about to 
 describe is calculated to arouse the deepest interest 
 in the mind of every student in Psychology. They rob 
 the episode of the buckle brought from the Russian 
 General's grave to his daughter in Chittenden of the 
 greater part of its appearance of improbability; and, taken 
 in connection with the Compton mysteries, described 
 in their appropriate place in this Part II, indicate that 
 we are doing no violence to our sagacity to expect that 
 before long we may witness in our American "circles" 
 'phases of " manifestations " worthy to be classed with 
 the ancient and modern mysteries of the countries of 
 the Orient. 
 
 The first evening I spent in Philadelphia, I had a very 
 long conversation through rappings with what purported 
 to be the spirit who calls himself " John King." Who- 
 ever this person may be, whether he was the Buccaneer 
 Morgan or Pontius Pilate, Columbus or Zoroaster, he has 
 been the busiest and most powerful spirit, or what you 
 please to call it, connected with this whole Modern 
 Spiritualism. In this country and Europe we read of his 
 physical feats, his audible speaking, his legerdemain, his 
 direct writing, his materializations. He was with the 
 Koons family in Ohio, the Davenports in N. Y., the 
 Williams in London, and the mediums in France and 
 Germany. Mme. de B. encountered him fourteen years 
 ago in Russia and Circassia, talked with and saw him in 
 Egypt and India, I met him in London, in 1870, and he 
 seems able to converse in any language with equal ease. 
 I have talked with him in English, French, German, 
 Spanish, and Latin, and have heard others do the same 
 in Greek, Russian, Italian, Georgian, (Caucasus) and 
 Turkish ; his replies being always pertinent and satis- 
 factory. His rap is peculiar and easily recognizable 
 from others — a loud, sharp, crackling report. He objects 
 to the application of tests, but after refusing them, will, 
 at the most unexpected times, give such as are much 
 more startling and conclusive than the ones proposed. 
 He has done this with me, not once merely but dozens of 
 times ; and, really it became the most difficult thing in 
 
JOHN KING ' S 1)1 SCL OS U&ES. 455 
 
 the world for me to hesitate a moment longer in giving 
 up all reserve and acknowledging myself a Spiritualist 
 pur sang. 
 
 I went to Philadelphia without a theory as to the 
 Holmes imbroglio ; the newspaper accounts had been so 
 confusing that I dismissed the whole subject from my 
 mind, and determined to start at the very bottom and 
 build up my belief by degrees. But at my first interview 
 with " John King," he rapped out the whole secret history 
 of the affair, telling me the parties concerned in the 
 pretended exposure, their names, the agents they em- 
 ployed, the sums of money subscribed, who carried the 
 purse, who disbursed the funds, and who received the 
 spoils. I was amazed beyond description, for the infor- 
 mation given was the farthest possible from what seemed 
 credible. 
 
 But each day's developments proved it more and more 
 true, and if I could only have afforded to wait, I have 
 little doubt but that documentary and parole evidence 
 would have been forthcoming to substantiate the whole 
 story! As it is, however, I will have to leave it only half 
 told, for the bloody experience of 1692 stands as a warn- 
 ing for all time against relying wholly upon " spectre 
 testimony." 
 
 It will be readily imagined that I early demanded of 
 the supposed spirit some evidence of his supersensual 
 existence. On the evening of the 6th, I said to him : 
 " If you are in reality a spirit, as you pretend, give me 
 some exhibition of your power. Make for me, for example, 
 
 a copy of the last note from Eliza White to Mr. that 
 
 I have in the portfolio in my pocket." He made no 
 reply, but rattled on about other matters, and did not 
 recur to the subject that evening. On the evening of 
 the 8th, however, as we were sitting by the table, Mme. 
 de B. writing and I reading, John rapped loudly for 
 the alphabet, and spelt out, " Hand me your dictionary, 
 under the table, will you ?" Mme. de B. did as requested. 
 "The mucilage." She handed the bottle down. "Your 
 penknife." She passed that down also. All was quiet 
 for a moment, when he rapped that we should look. We 
 took up the dictionary and lo ! upon a fly-leaf in the 
 back part, we found an exact copy of the note I had 
 referred to two evenings before. The portfolio in which 
 I carried it, with other documents relating to the case, I 
 had taken out of my pocket a half-hour before, and laid 
 
 16 
 
456 THE KATIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 upon the mantel-shelf. With this exception, it had not 
 been out^of my possession, and the whole time it lay on 
 the mantel, it was under my eye and I sat within a few 
 feet of it. It was impossible, therefore, for any trickster 
 to have secretly transferred a duplicate to my friend's 
 dictionary. 
 
 I crossed over, got the paper, and compared it, and 
 here we have the two in fac-simile. 
 
 By placing the one over the other, I found that the 
 duplicate was not a tracing, for, while the two fitted 
 in certain places, they would not in others, and there 
 were just such differences in the formation of the letters 
 as showed that the duplicate might have been written 
 by the same person as the other, but at a different time. 
 
 The reader will observe the very quaint writing in the 
 foot-note of the duplicate, signed " J. K." This is 
 supposed to be John's own autograph, and another 
 example of it will be found on the communication of 
 Katie King to myself. 
 
 It will be imagined that I awaited the fulfillment of his 
 promise the next evening with great interest, not to say 
 anxiety, but I said nothing for fear His Worship might 
 be induced to postpone the matter indefinitely. Mme. 
 de. B. and I were alone this time, occupied as before, 
 when suddenly at John's demand, expressed through rap- 
 pings, she took a sheet of Bristol-board drawing-paper, 
 and showing me that both sides were perfectly clean, 
 threw it under the table. I glanced under the cloth to 
 see that there was nothing there but the one piece of 
 paper, which was easily recognizable by its size and 
 shape. John rapped that I should look at my watch, and 
 note how long it took him to perform the experiment. 
 
 Madame de B. went on with her writing, and no sound 
 was heard but the scratching of her pen and the ticking 
 of my watch. When 30 seconds had elapsed John 
 rapped " Done," and upon going beneath the table, and 
 seeing the paper, I made an exclamation of disappoint- 
 ment, for the upper surface was blank. But as I lifted 
 the sheet from the floor I saw, upon the face that had 
 lain next to the carpet, a second copy of the same 
 document. 
 
 The difference in the formation of the letters between 
 the original and duplicate is not nearly so marked as 
 those between this triplicate and the original. Mr. 
 Betanelly came in at this moment and we compared 
 
D U PLICA TE LE TTER S. 45 7 
 
 0<s 
 
 
 
 THE ORIGINAL NOTE. 
 
 ao r&~ <&y*> yjc^. *&*»ty ^n^^ui 
 
 I y/i ll try c iru>^ a li^r fonwrtf vtf 
 
 7 J/< 
 
 THE FIRST COPY. 
 
45 S THE KA TIB KING AFFAI8. 
 
 the writings with the greatest care, only to be more 
 and more astounded at this fresh exhibition of the 
 power of our invisible ally. Now let the reader turn 
 
 ^*K-£P£fefr 
 
 Ghx 
 
 yM* 
 
 *. %***. &y*. X_JlL^ cJw~<£i <&n^V<&£ 
 
 THE BRISTOL-BOARD COPY. 
 
 to the story of the visit of the two Egyptian gentlemen 
 to the old Sheikh, on page 414, and then to the fac- 
 similes of the writings done for me by the spirits at 
 Chittenden (which look so suspiciously like Horatio 
 Eddy's autograph,) and decide whether the mere fact 
 of such resemblances as all these, would be any proof 
 positive that a medium had been committing fraud if 
 he should give us communications in handwriting very 
 much like his own. 
 
 The portfolio containing Eliza White's Katie-King- 
 pote and John's first duplicate was this time in my 
 coat-pocket, where it had been constantly since the 
 preceding evening. John broke in upon our expressions 
 of surprise by rapping out : " Do you folks want me 
 to commit forgery for you ? I can bring you here the 
 blank check of any National Bank, and sign upon it the 
 name of any President, Cashier or other official." I 
 thanked His Invisible Highness kindly and declined the 
 
A PHILADELPHIA PROPHETESS. 
 
 459 
 
 favor, upon the sufficient ground that the Police did not 
 believe in Spiritualism, and I did not care to risk the 
 chance of convincing them in case the forged papers 
 should be found in my possession. 
 
 I devoted an idle hour this same day to an interview 
 with a very remarkable " impressible medium," named 
 Miss Annie M. Bulwer, to whom I was recommended by 
 Mr. Owen and Dr. Child. I went to her a perfect 
 stranger, declined to give my name, and nevertheless, 
 was more interested by what she told me than by anything 
 I ever got. in the same length of time from a person of her 
 class. She told me my name, described the business 
 upon which I had come to Philadelphia, spoke of the 
 probable result (which, I may say, has been in great 
 measure verified), and favored me with sundry prophecies, 
 two of which I record as a matter of curiosity. Among 
 .other things she said that I would be invited to England 
 before long, to act with Messrs. Wallace, Crookes, and 
 Varley in an important matter connected with Spiritual- 
 ism, to arise in the future ; and that my present book 
 would be translated into Russian, German, Polish, and 
 other languages. Part of her prediction is already in a 
 fair way of being verified, for the Russian translation is 
 almost finished, and I am informed that the work is to be 
 republished in German, at Leipsic. I pray the reader's 
 indulgence for this digression, but so few prophecies from 
 these mediums are placed upon record in advance, that I 
 thought there would be no harm in breaking through the 
 rule 
 
 Mrs. Holmes returned from Vineland on the nth, and 
 that evening I attended for the first time a seance at her 
 house. There were present fifteen persons- The first 
 thing in order was a " dark seance," which I will not 
 particularly dwell upon, as I afterwards had the oppor- 
 tunity ot holding one in my own rooms, under test 
 conditions, and will allude to it in its proper place. 
 
 I found the cabinet a triangular, bottomless box, 
 standing in the corner of the room before a window, just 
 as described in Eliza White's story in the papers ; but I 
 made no remark about it or any of the arrangements that 
 evening, as I wished to see how things were done. 
 Mrs. Holmes, of course, occupied the cabinet alone, her 
 husband being in the country. She went in and sat upon 
 a chair, closed and bolted the door from the inside, and 
 somebody outside started a large music-box to playing. 
 

 460 THE KA TIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 In a few minutes the short, black curtain behind one of 
 the apertures was drawn aside, and a man's head 
 appeared, as if floating in the air. It was ghastly pale, a 
 heavy black beard and moustache increasing the unnatural 
 pallor by contrast.. I went up to the aperture, leaned my 
 arm upon the bracket-shelf beneath it, and gazed into 
 the face, which was not twelve inches from me. A 
 more dreadful sight I had never beheld. The lower 
 portions, including the wavy silky beard, were perfectly 
 formed, as, also was the brow ; but the eyes were not 
 materialized, and the cavities they should have filled 
 were edged with ragged rims, as though the face had 
 been made of wax and the eyes melted out by the 
 application of a red-hot iron. To see the thing floating 
 in the air as buoyantly as a cork in water, arid then gaze 
 at the orbless sockets, was calculated to test weak nerves 
 to the fullest extent. "Well/' I said to the head, "you 
 are a handsome young man, and no mistake ! Do you 
 think any damsel of taste would fall in love with such a 
 face as that ? " The lips smiled, and the head wagged 
 from side to side to' mark dissent. I asked many ques- 
 tions, and was answered by nods and shakes, to signify 
 "Yes" and "No." A well-formed masculine hand, 
 matching in color the ghastly face, came up and stroked 
 the beard, and motioned to me to do likewise. I passed 
 my hand inside, and felt the beard, and found it soft, silky, 
 and as warm in temperature as my own. But I was not 
 satisfied with the seance, for the medium was not under 
 test conditions, and the cabinet stood where it did during 
 the time when Eliza White's pretended comedy was 
 being enacted. Moreover, I was not satisfied with the 
 movements of the head — they were too stiff and con- 
 strained, and made me think I had possibly been looking 
 at a cleverly made mask, or inflated rubber head, although 
 I had never seen its like before. 
 
 The next morning I procured some stout unbleached 
 sheeting, and had a capacious bag made with a draw- 
 string at its mouth, It was large enough to take in 
 Mrs. Holmes up to her neck, leaving her room enough 
 to be comfortable. I also went to the house, and 
 myself moved the cabinet from its place in the corner 
 to the other side of the room, against a dead-wall. 
 Around its two sides mosquito netting was tacked to 
 prevent any possible admission of a confederate, through 
 
THE HOLMES CABINET. 
 
 461 
 
 a movable panel. With a screw- driver I carefully 
 tested every screw, and found that instead of any one 
 or two being looser than the rest, (and so corroborating 
 Eliza's story that she had screwed and unscrewed 
 them at every seance) each was as solid in the wood as 
 every other one. I found that Mrs. Holmes measured 
 5 feet 3 inches in height, while the lower edge of the 
 aperture was 5 feet 5 inches from the floor. When she 
 stood upon tip-toe, the top of her head was just visible 
 from the outside, through the aperture. 
 
 Here we have a front-view and ground-plan of the 
 cabinet. It is made of imitation black-walnut, orna- 
 
 mented in front with mouldings and panels The two 
 sides of the triangle are of matched pine boards, but 
 the furnace heat has shrunken them so that in p aces 
 the tongues have slipped out of the grooves, and light 
 can be seen through the cracks. The sketch shows 
 the mosquito-netting tacked around the sides : 
 
 Tust as Mrs. Holmes was ready to enter the cabinet, 
 I stopped her and said that as she had consented to 
 submit to test conditions, I should now begin to apply 
 them, with her permission. She assented ; whereupon 
 I produced the bag, and she got into it. I secured 
 myself effectually I believed, against fraud by drawing 
 
462 
 
 THE KA TIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 the mouth around her neck, just tight enough to 
 admit of her breathing, without its choking her. I 
 then sealed the string, close up, with sealing-wax, and 
 
 stamped it with my ring. Finally, I removed the chair 
 from the cabinet, and left her to stand up. 
 
 I pushed the door to, and it was i?7imediately bolted on 
 the inside, the light was made very dim, and we awaited 
 results. In less than three minutes, a white hand 
 appeared at one of the apertures. It had no rings 
 upon the fingers; Mrs. Holmes had several on hers. 
 Her hand moreover, is of a very peculiar shape, its 
 outlines being full of curves, and the fingers long and 
 bony, with the phalanges strongly defined. The hand 
 shown was plump, well-shaped and large. 
 
 Then, after a few minutes there came into view a 
 partially materialized female face, much worse to look 
 upon than the male one of the preceding evening. I 
 could not think of anything to compare it with except 
 the face of a corpse, half eaten by rats or crabs. It was 
 framed in a drapery of white muslin stuff, and, like the 
 other, floated in the air, swimming towards the aperture 
 
GHA STL Y FA CES. 463 
 
 now from one side, and now from the other, or rising 
 from below ; then remaining stationary for a moment 
 or so, it gazed at us in a stiff, blank way, with its eye- 
 less sockets, and its half-formed features, until it was 
 enough to make one's flesh creep to look at it. But I 
 went up, stared at it and talked with it by means of its 
 nods and shakes, until it was able to tell me that it 
 was the head of Katie King, herself, badly materialized. 
 
 Its peculiarities, aside from the dreadful ragged- 
 ness of" its half made-up features, were a preternatural 
 narrowness of chin and forehead, and a marked red- 
 ness of lips, as though they were stained with vermilion. 
 I doubt if ever a late supper conjured a worse vision 
 out of the realm of dreams to affright the dyspeptic 
 withal, than this one; but it was in a measure, more 
 satisfactory than a perfect visage would have been, for, 
 the medium being helplessly confined within the bag, 
 and no possibility of confederacy existing, it seemed 
 to show that the face was neither that of a human being, 
 nor yet a mask, for such masks are never made. It 
 came several times within sight, and then disappeared 
 for the evening. 
 
 Upon entering Mme. de B.'s rooms this evening, I 
 found several ladies and gentlemen waiting to be 
 introduced to me, and they were amusing themselves 
 with some "mind-reading" tests given by a boy 
 medium named DeWitt C. Hough. One gentleman 
 mentally requested that an affirmative answer to his 
 mental question should be indicated, by the lad's lead- 
 ing him across the room and placing his, (the gentle- 
 man's) hand upon a portrait of " John King," in a glazed 
 frame, that hung upon the wall. This was done, when 
 to our surprise it was found that the glass over the 
 little picture had disappeared, although it had been 
 noticed in its usual place the same day. This glass 
 was not restored until nearly a week had elapsed, when, 
 one evening, John rapped that he wanted a very small 
 piece of white paper passed under the table, and pres- 
 ently said that he had brought the glass back again. 
 Sure enough, there it was, with the small strip of 
 paper gummed on it, and a line in John's handwriting 
 to the effect that he had had it away with him. 
 
 In entering this circumstance in my note-book, I 
 appended, by way of pleasantry, the slang expression 
 16* 
 
464 THE KA TIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 " Bully for John ! " It will be seen further on how he 
 returned the compliment. 
 
 The next morning, the 13th, Mr. Owen, Mr. Betanelly 
 and I went to Mrs. Holmes' house without pre-announce- 
 ment to hold a private seance. The windows were 
 darkened, Mrs. Holmes was put into the bag, which was 
 sealed as before, and the chair was removed. In 70 
 seconds from the time the door was closed, a hand was 
 shown at the aperture. I approached the window, and 
 laying my hand upon the sill, it was patted by a detached 
 hand, which I found soft, plump, warm and moist. My 
 hand was then gently pulled down inside the cabinet and 
 pressed between two hands and caressed. I asked that 
 I might be allowed to feel the two thumbs at once, and 
 upon opening my hand the two thumbs were laid between 
 my thumb and forefinger, and I pressed them. Mr. 
 Owen's hand was then pressed and caressed. Passing 
 my hand within again I felt and stroked the man's beard, 
 as on the former occasion, and afterwards the turbaned 
 top of a head was raised just up to the aperture, but the 
 face was not shown. Finally, all three of us laid a hand 
 each upon the sill, and each was patted by turns. 
 
 These were all of the materializations of the seance, 
 but just before its close a whispering voice addressed me 
 in German from within the cabinet, giving me the name 
 "Katrina Gobe," and saying that she had died some 
 years before, in Philadelphia. Mrs. Holmes is said to be 
 unacquainted with any language but English. 
 
 John King showed himself very clearly at the evening 
 seance, coming as many as twenty times in sight, and 
 allowing a number of people to approach him and shake 
 hands or stroke his beard. I stood at the aperture as 
 long as I chose. His eyes were perfectly formed to-night, 
 and moved about, and winked in a very natural manner. 
 He smiled at me, shook hands, and talked quite at length. 
 I requested him to float his head up so high that every 
 one could see that it was not possible for Mrs. Holmes 
 either to be wearing a mask, or holding one up ; where- 
 upon he rose to the extreme top of the window and 
 thrust his head outside, at an elevation of 6 feet 7 inches 
 from the floor. 
 
 One of the perplexing features of the Katie King affair 
 was the supposed resemblance between the manuscript of 
 Eliza White and that of the notes given by " Katie " to 
 Mr. Robert Dale Owen, Dr. Fellger and others, at the 
 
 L 
 
PRIVATE SEANCE FOR TESTS. 465 
 
 Holmes seances. I determined to attempt at least the 
 procurement of a communication to myself from Katie ; 
 and so, thinking the moment propitious, I asked if Katie 
 would favor me. The answer came in a whisper : " I'll 
 do it, Colonel, if I can get power enough. 5 ' I then passed 
 through the aperture a sheet of note-paper that I had 
 purchased on my way from my lodgings, and that was 
 marked in a way to effectually prevent their palming off 
 upon me a prepared communication, upon another sheet, 
 as Eliza White avers Mr. Owen was deceived in the 
 matter of the Fred. W. Robertson writing. Whatever 
 became of my paper, it disappeared, for, as soon as the 
 seance was over, I searched thoroughly all about and no 
 trace of it could be found. 
 
 The next day at 2.30 p. m., I had a seance at my own 
 rooms. A cabinet was improvised out of the short square 
 passage between the sitting and bed-room, and a curtain 
 of black paper-muslin, with two windows cut in it, and 
 short curtains hanging over them inside, so as to be 
 raised or dropped at will, was tacked over the sitting- 
 room door. 
 
 Those present upon this occasion were Mme. de Bla- 
 vatsky, Hon. Robert Dale Owen, Dr. Fellger, Mr. 
 Betanelly, the medium Mrs. Holmes, and myself. The 
 rear door of the passage was sealed by Mr. Owen with 
 strips of thin paper, after Mrs. Holmes had been sealed 
 up in the bag. Mr. Owen also locked the bed-room door 
 leading into the passage, and put the key into his pocket. 
 We then darkened the room and took our places close 
 to the curtain. In half a minute hands were shown, and, 
 almost immediately John King's face appeared and was 
 thrust quite through the aperture. He was perfectly 
 materialized, and came as near being a handsome man as 
 he ever did, I presume, and that is quite near. 
 
 A voice, supposed to be Katie's, spoke to us, and 
 calling up Mr. Owen and myself, she, or, at all events, a 
 female hand patted our hands. I asked if she had 
 written the communication to me yet, but she said she 
 had not. I then requested that she would hand me the 
 paper so that I might show it to Mr. Owen. In a moment 
 it was thrust through the aperture, and Mr. Owen exam- 
 ining it by the light, found no writing except what I had 
 written in French in the middle of the page. I passed 
 the paper back, and it was taken from my hand. 
 
 John King allowed Mr. Owen to feel his hand and 
 
466 
 
 THE KA TIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 beard, and, altogether, the manifestations were quite as 
 satisfactory if not more so than any I had thus far seen 
 at Mrs. Holmes' house. They proved beyond question 
 the fact that, whatever they may be, they depend for 
 their production neither upon false panels, nor trap- 
 doors, nor wire machinery. The seance terminated 
 about 5 o'clock. 
 
 The public seance was held at 825 North Tenth 
 Street, at 8 p.m., as usual. A gentleman present sug- 
 gested that I should tie Mrs. Holmes' hands together 
 before putting her into the bag, and I did so ; but, to 
 tell the truth, I thought the precaution so unnecessary 
 that the tying was a mere pretence. I considered it 
 perfectly impossible for her to get her hands outside 
 the bag to iise any masks, even if she had such con- 
 cealed about her. 
 
 John King appeared as usual and allowed six or 
 seven persons, beside myself, to approach and converse 
 with him or shake hands. As I saw his head floating 
 free in the air within a few inches of my eyes, I recalled 
 Eliza's assertion that the faces were ten-cent masks 
 manipulated by the medium, and the idea occurred to 
 ask permission to satisfy myself in the most conclusive 
 way that I was not looking at a mechanical contrivance. 
 John assenting, I then put my arm in, and swept the air 
 in a semi-circle beneath his head, coming into contact 
 with neither stick, nor wire, nor medium's arm. The 
 drooping ends of his white turban dragged over my 
 hand as I withdrew it. I then requested him to depress 
 his head, and passed my arm in like manner as before, 
 completely over his head, thus finding that it was not 
 suspended from above by string or wire. 
 
 I handed John my signet-ring and asked him to hold 
 
 it for a moment so that I might hereafter have it as a 
 souvenir of the evening's parley. One of the ladies 
 handed him her ring also, for the same purpose. He 
 soon returned the second ring, but said he should keep 
 
KA TIE ' S LE TTERS. 467 
 
 mine, which I must say I did not fancy, as it was an 
 expensive intaglio, and I was not in the mood of making 
 presents to detached heads and hands. Before releasing 
 Mrs. Holmes from the bag at the close of the seance, I 
 searched the cabinet in every part, but my ring was 
 gone. 
 
 The voice of Katie called me up to the cabinet after 
 I had resumed my seat, and a hand passed out to me 
 the sheet of paper I had handled a few hours before. 
 The previously blank surface was now covered with two 
 communications to me, in a handwriting which seems 
 to be identical with the Katie King notes of last 
 summer, addressed to Dr. Fellger and Mr. Owen, here 
 given. Let the reader judge for himself: 
 
 d 
 
 eX_ 
 
 £s4AS^. A>t^t T* 
 
 3-^ **V &JZ *%*£, 
 
468 
 
 THE KA TIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 xJd&CCK/ Ycd*^ $-&&*" 
 
 TZ 
 
 am, 
 
 d yteX* 
 
 J$ Ua^M >^y 
 
 <r 
 
 COyy^ 
 
 
 
 Compare the handwriting of these with that of the 
 paper received by me from " Katie," here given. That 
 in the center square is my own. 
 
 
 ^/A^^-^-£^&& 0*%t-&$ $L 
 
 a*JLi 
 
 /gAJJ , u**, j/*^%Z£ 
 
 %ulU foryw- Wua-ffrfDv do wdK^ ifsgwi&fc 
 
 Such of the persons present as witnessed the delivery 
 of the paper to me then signed a certificate at my 
 request, and the seance was brought to a close. 
 
THE WIRE-CAGE TEST. 469 
 
 A fresh surprise was in store for me that night, for 
 when I was about retiring, I turned down the pillow to 
 put my watch beneath it, and there lay my ring uninjured. 
 Its weight is 7^- pennyweights, and the distance it had 
 been transported was perhaps three-fourths of a mile. 
 
 On Monday evening, January 19th, I returned from 
 a short visit to Hartford, and attended the seance at 
 the usual place. Mr. Holmes and his wife were both 
 present this evening, the former having recovered 
 sufficiently from his hemorrhages to bear traveling. 
 Mrs. Holmes went inside this evening, and her husband 
 sat outside. I placed a guitar inside the cabinet. 
 Instantly after I closed the door, a hand was shown at 
 the aperture. The guitar was played upon, floated 
 about, bumping against the sides and roof of the cabi- 
 net, and was violently thrust through the aperture. 
 ,The face of John King was shown, but none other, and 
 nothing unusual occurred, except a violent altercation 
 between some visitors and the Holmeses, as to whether 
 it was possible for the former to pass their hands 
 through the neck of the bag. 
 
 I determined that there should be no longer any 
 doubt upon this subject, so the next evening I took 
 special care in sealing the bag. I closed the mouth very 
 tight and sealed the strings with wax to a silver coin 
 in such a way that any attempt to open or loosen the 
 mouth would break the wax. I had a friend present, 
 an eminent inventor, who made a thorough examina- 
 tion of the bag and pronounced it impossible for any 
 trickery to be resorted to. I also caused Mrs. Holmes 
 to drop her arms by her side, and then pinned her 
 sleeves to the bag in such a way that she could 
 not raise her hands more than four inches from the 
 perpendicular. 
 
 I had caused to be attached to the left-hand aperture, 
 at the inside, a cage or basket of wire-cloth, with an 
 arched crown and flat bottom ; intending to have the 
 faces or hands show themselves within it, if possible. 
 
 Before closing the cabinet-door I requested that the 
 bolt should be "thrown back instantly after being shot, 
 so that I might see if Mrs. Holmes were moving from 
 her position in the apex of the triangular box. This 
 was done. I stood ready with hand upon the latch, and 
 the moment the bolt was drawn I 'pulled the door open, 
 and the medium was standing motionless in her bag. 
 
470 THE KA TIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 Two guitars placed inside were now played upon 
 simultaneously, and pushed out of the right-hand 
 aperture. Within one minute a hand was shown at 
 the same window. Then the curtain over the other 
 aperture, and within the cage, was drawn aside. How? 
 A hand was then shown there, so that all of the thirty 
 persons present saw it. 
 
 Then John King appeared at the right window fre- 
 quently, and sundry persons, including General Lippitt, 
 (who was present for the first time to begin an investi- 
 gation of the Holmes affair,) my friend the inventor, 
 and others. 
 
 The wire-basket appearing to be too small to permit 
 of the perfect formation of a head within it, I had the 
 mechanics enlarge it the next day, by removing the flat 
 bottom and carrying the sides down to the floor. I 
 also had it permanently attached to the face of the 
 cabinet by staples and wire ties that passed through 
 the boards and were twisted and cut off on the front 
 face. Here are the certificates of the workmen : 
 
 Philadelphia, Jan. 19th, 1875. 
 
 This is to certify that we have attached to the left-hand aperture 
 of the cabinet in the parlor of 825 North Tenth Street, in this city, 
 a wire basket with a flat bottom and curved sides and crown, the 
 meshes of which are at a distance of 1-3 inch apart, or what is 
 known in the trade as " No. 3 wire-cloth ; " that the said basket is 
 permanently attached to the said cabinet by staples ; and that it 
 would be impossible for any person to introduce a hand, face, or any 
 other thing of greater diameter than one-third of an inch, within 
 the said basket, without removing it by drawing the staples out of 
 the wood. W. L. Wilson, Wm. H. Fennell, 
 
 With J. P. Fennell, Wire Worker, No. 36 N. 6th St. 
 Philadelphia, Jan. 20th, 1875. 
 
 I hereby certify that the above described wire-cage was this day 
 altered by removing the bottom sheet, and extending the sides con- 
 tinuously down to the floor, making the whole height of the cage 
 from floor to crown 7 feet 9 inches. In my opinion it is impossible 
 to introduce a hand or head within the said cage without taking it 
 apart. The two edges of the wire-cloth sheets are now permanently 
 attached to the inner front face of the cabinet by staples driven 
 home, and tie-wires passing clear through the boards and tied on 
 the outer face of the same. James P. Fennell, 
 
 Wire Worker, 36 N. 6th St., Phil. 
 
*A JUGGLER'S OPINION." 
 
 471 
 
 The cut affords a very good idea of the form, dimen- 
 sions, and penetrability of the cage. 
 
 We held a seance at 5 p.m., but it was 
 very unsatisfactory to me, as, relying 
 upon the cage, I put neither Mrs. Holmes 
 nor her husband in the bag, and both 
 were inside the cabinet at the same time. 
 I fancied I heard them working at my 
 wire cage as if trying to effect an open- 
 ing, but they did not succeed, and beyond 
 the drawing of the curtain aside, noth- 
 ing occurred at that aperture. At the 
 other John King showed himself, and 
 also a female face, purporting to be 
 Katie's, but not satisfactorily identified. 
 
 At the evening seance, a hand and 
 arm appeared within the basket, and 
 swept across the window and back. 
 John King's head also appeared there, 
 rising from below and dropping again. 
 It was not satisfactory, however, for I 
 could not understand why, if it were 
 genuine it might not stay as long and 
 show itself as freely there as at the other 
 window. I had a very clever juggler 
 with me this evening, one who is famous 
 as a maker of mechanical tricks for jugglers. He was 
 introduced to me by Mr. Coleman Sellers, the distin- 
 guished engineer, President of the Franklin Institute, 
 and the correspondent mentioned by Mr. Crookes, in 
 one of his pamphlets, as an ingrained skeptic. Mr. 
 Harding, the amateur juggler, thought, upon examin- 
 ing the wire-cage after the seance, that there was one 
 spot sufficiently unconfined by the staples to permit of 
 squeezing a hand through and manipulating a mask, 
 so the next day I had this attended to. 
 
 At the seance in question two faces were shown at 
 the right aperture — John King's and another. The 
 former 3 looked natural, and by drawing the curtain 
 aside and peering in, I saw, at one and the same time, 
 John's head high up to the left, behind the door, and 
 Mr. Holmes sitting in the chair before me. John's 
 head was, therefore, not a mask worn by Holmes. 
 
 On the 21st, I had a long consultation with another 
 juo-gler of acknowledged skill and also a dealer in 
 
 THE WIRE CAGB. 
 
472 THE KA TIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 jugglers' apparatus, Mr. Yost by name, who explained 
 to me the manner in which he fancied that Mrs. Holmes 
 got her hands out of the bag, to work artificial faces. 
 It is to make a slight rip or cut in the hem covering 
 the draw-string, and then draw enough slack string 
 through inside to enable her to slip out either her 
 hands, or her whole bust if she chooses. This plan 
 requires that she shall have one hand free while the 
 bag is being sealed, so that she can pull on the slack, 
 and make me believe I am sealing up the mouth 
 effectually and tightly. The explanation did not seem 
 satisfactory, but I determined that no such trick should 
 be played upon me from that time forward, at any 
 rate. 
 
 We held a test seance at 4 o'clock that day, at which, 
 among others, Mr. Owen and General Lippitt were 
 present. 
 
 At my last interview with John King, at Mme. de 
 B.'s rooms, I requested him to give me a private sign 
 when I should next see him at Holmes', and he con- 
 sented. He came to the aperture at this afternoon 
 seance, and looking at me, he gave the sign by turning 
 his head from left to right and back again twice in 
 succession. He also gave to Mme. de B. a certain 
 sign known only to themselves. 
 
 A detached hand was shown inside the cage, and 
 then we tried a very interesting test. Premising by 
 saying that Mr. Holmes, like his wife, is unacquainted 
 with any foreign language, I fancy the reader will 
 share my surprise, when I state that at the request of 
 Mr. Owen, Doctor Fellger, Mme. de B., Mr. Betanelly 
 and myself, expressed in Italian, German, Latin, Rus- 
 sian, Greek, Georgian, Turkish, French and Spanish, 
 this hand within the wire-cage gave signal after signal, 
 as many times in each instance as we severally indicated 
 in these various languages. The hand purported to be 
 that of John King, and hence I said in another place 
 that he seemed to understand every language, a second 
 Magliabecchi. We were as much astonished as Appol- 
 lonius himself was in India, where, he tells us, the 
 sages have the magical power of understanding and 
 speaking the languages of those who come to them 
 from the most distant countries. 
 
 John also addressing me in English, said he would 
 look after one of my sons, whose name is an unusual 
 
CLOSE SCRUTINY. 473 
 
 one, and one that certainly no person in the room had 
 heard me mention. 
 
 Mr. Owen, General Lippitt and I very carefully 
 scrutinized John's face as it appeared at the right 
 window. It seemed perfectly natural, the eyes were 
 thoroughly materialized, and were rolled about in 
 every direction, by request. 
 
 Twenty-seven persons were present that evening at the 
 public seance. I attended to the bag with unusual care, 
 making Mrs. Holmes keep her hands by her side con- 
 stantly ; holding the mouth of the bag in such a way that 
 there could be no slack ; pinning her sleeves down further 
 than usual ; examining and testing the string in every way 
 after that ; and then calling up every person in the room 
 by turns to see if it were possible for the captive medium 
 to get a hand out to play tricks. I then closed the door, 
 which as usual was bolted on the inside by somebody 
 'whose hands were not sealed up in a bag, and before I 
 could turn down the gas, in the chandelier over my head, 
 a detached hand was thrust out of the right aperture ! 
 John showed himself, and I had a long conversation with 
 him in French, he replying correctly by movements of 
 his head. Among other things, I asked him if it was his 
 own voice that had spoken to me in English that after- 
 noon about my son, and he answered affirmatively. He 
 allowed a number to approach, and gallantly kissed his 
 hand to several of the ladies. I saw the movement of 
 his lips, and the sound of the osculation was so audible 
 that all in the room could hear it. It was no mask. 
 
 There was a rattling and scraping on the wire-cage, as 
 though something hard were being drawn over the 
 meshes, but nothing happened inside, except that the 
 curtain was drawn aside. 
 
 Another face beside John's appeared, but it was not 
 recognized. A number of hands were also shown, of 
 different sizes, among them one fair, well-formed, plump 
 hand of a woman, so peculiar in its shape that I examined 
 Mrs. Holmes' hands after the seance, only to again 
 observe the thin, long thumb, and peculiar sickle-shaped 
 curve of the outer edge of the palm. 
 
 The London Spiritualist, of February 1st, 1873, con- 
 tains a bit of prima-facie evidence in favor of Katie King's 
 having actually appeared through the mediumship of the 
 Holmeses. It is a report of a seance at Mrs. Makdougall 
 Gregory's, 21 Green St., Grosvenor Square, London, and 
 
474 THE KA TIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 the paper editorially certifies to the fact that " Katie King 
 showed herself, and two old gentlemen, one with a white 
 beard, and one old lady." 
 
 In a previous number of the same paper, Mr. J. C. Lux- 
 moore avers that he saw at Mr. Holmes' rooms, at n 
 Old Quebec Street, the identical Katie King whom he 
 had seen three times before at Hackney in the presence 
 of Florence Cook. 
 
 Finally, in the paper called The Medium and Daybreak, 
 a correspondent reports, in a card dated March 24th, 1873, 
 that he attended a Holmes seance " at which many spirit- 
 faces were shown, among them that of the elder Katie 
 King, who spoke in her usual whispers, and was very 
 palpable and distinct." 
 
 I had now been so long in Philadelphia without seeing 
 the full form of Katie King that, despairing of her appear- 
 ance, and having accomplished the main object of my 
 experiments — to test the "materializing" powers of the 
 mediums, I was growing impatient to depart. At an 
 afternoon test seance, both mediums sat outside at my 
 request for a time. There were rappings inside the 
 cabinet, and some scrapings upon the wire-cage, but the 
 experiment was a failure, and as no faces appeared, I sent 
 Mr. Holmes inside, and sealed him up in a new bag I 
 had had made, and pinned his sleeves to it. In five 
 seconds a hand was shown at the right window : then two 
 hands were shown together, and then John King appeared, 
 showing me his full head and shoulders. 
 
 At the evening seance, the usual precautions were 
 taken, and as usual hands were shown and John appeared 
 and spoke to me. A woman's hand and arm were thrust 
 quite out of the window, and after an intermission of a 
 few minutes there came a face which struck me as soon 
 as I saw it as the Katie King of the Holmes photograph. 
 If it was not the identical face, it at any rate seemed to 
 be, and this impression was made upon the mind of Gen- 
 eral Lippitt, also. I scrutinized it very closely. The 
 face was not smooth and well rounded, but seemingly 
 roughly finished. The eyebrows were straight and black; 
 the contour of face oval, rather long and thin ; the dark 
 hair lay smooth upon the brow. A gauzy white material, 
 wrapped around it, framed the head, and made it look 
 unnatural and ghastly. 
 
 Our test seance began at 4 p.m. the next day. John, 
 and the Katie like the photograph appeared several 
 
A CONUNDRUM. 475 
 
 times. The latter borrowed General Lippitt's pocket- 
 knife, and cut off and handed him a lock of her hair, 
 which, upon subsequent comparison with locks in the 
 possession of Mr. Owen and Dr. Fellger, was found to be 
 identical in texture, and color — the latter, a peculiar 
 glorious shade of golden brown. 
 
 While looking at this head I saw something inside the 
 cabinet that I would like to have some one more capable 
 than myself explain : I saw the Katie King head, with 
 the mouth of a bag drawn tightly about her neck as the 
 bag was drawn about the medium's, and a hand, which 
 was attached to an arm that came from another direction, 
 took hold of and fondled mine. Now, one thing is per- 
 fectly clear : this hand and arm did not belong to Mrs. 
 Holmes' body, for the seal on the bag's mouth was found 
 unbroken after the seance. And again, if Mrs. Holmes 
 had managed to get her hand and arm out, what bag was 
 that which I saw drawn tightly about the neck of the 
 "Katie King" there? for the bag could not be both 
 closed and open at once. I leave the Philadelphia 
 Editors to display their preternatural shrewdness in 
 explaining this riddle. I will help them so far as to say 
 that the bag had no false lining nor slack string; there 
 was no duplicate bag in the cabinet ; no confederate could 
 either have been in there before the seance or got in at 
 any time while it was progressing; and I have not exag- 
 gerated or falsified the fact. 
 
 On the evening of the 24th, I had the circle at my 
 own lodgings, a different suite of rooms from that in 
 which the former seance was held. A cabinet was 
 improvised in the same manner as before, the black 
 muslin curtain with apertures, hanging over the front 
 door, and the other door being sealed by General Lippitt 
 to prevent the admission of any person or thing from 
 behind. 
 
 Nine persons were present, including the two mediums. 
 Mrs. Holmes was put into the bag, and Mr. Holmes sat 
 outside the cabinet with us. I completed the sealing of 
 the string, and then began to drive in a few tacks to hold 
 the curtain to its place, but before I could drive the 
 second tack, a detached hand was thrust into view from 
 the upper aperture, quite a distance above the medium's 
 head. 
 
 John King showed himself very distinctly, and calling 
 up Mr. Betanelly communicated to him, in his own 
 
476 THE KA TIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 language (the Georgian), a secret that he supposed none 
 knew except himself. He kissed his hand several times, 
 by request, and also saluted the cheek of a lady, who 
 offered it for the purpose. I stood at the aperture and 
 talked much with him, he addressing me in a voice audi- 
 ble to all, and I not a foot distant from his face. Katie, 
 or what purported to be she, also showed herself, but 
 badly materialized, her eyes being rot more than half- 
 formed. With her permission, I thrust my arm through 
 to feel the medium, and Katie, whom I saw at my right 
 as a dim, indistinct shape, guided my hand to the place 
 by taking me by the coat sleeve. This was neces- 
 sary, as the aperture was so high that I had to stand upon 
 tip-toe to get my arm through, and could not look in 
 Mrs. Holmes' direction while my arm was inside. I 
 repeated this experiment to make assurance doubly sure, 
 and this time carefully felt the medium's head, neck, 
 shoulders, and passed my hand down her arm, which was 
 unmistakably inside the bag, the spirit-hand clutching 
 my sleeve the whole time ! Mrs. Holmes' eyes were 
 tightly closed, her face was deathly cold, and her forehead 
 covered with a clammy dew. 
 
 General Lippitt was permitted to do the same thing, 
 and has published an account of the seance in the Banner 
 of Light, of date February 6th, 1875. General L. noticed 
 in Katie's accent this evening certain dialectic peculiar- 
 ities which were associated in his memory with the Katie 
 he had seen last May in the Holmes seances. 
 
 After this satisfactory experiment, I requested Mr. and 
 Mrs. Holmes to favor us with a "dark seance," and, this 
 being agreed to, the nine persons in the company drew 
 their chairs together and joined hands, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Holmes being separated from each other. Under these 
 circumstances, we were all touched by invisible hands, 
 myself often and in various places, sometimes three or 
 four of us were touched simultaneously, a pair of hands 
 were laid upon my head, a bunch of plumes was swept 
 across our faces, and then a cloth of some light fabric, 
 and, finally, at Mme, de B.'s order, some beautiful lights 
 danced in the air over her head and then disappeared. 
 These phenomena were similar to what had occurred 
 almost every evening in Mrs. Holmes' "dark-circles," 
 but in this instance there was absolutely no possibility 
 of trickery, and this account will suffice for all. 
 
 The next evening my last test seance was held, and it 
 
STARTLING PHENOMENA. 477 
 
 was a very notable one. While my experiments had 
 demonstrated beyond doubt the fact that many phe- 
 nomena occur in the presence of the Holmeses, which 
 are not due to trickery, yet I had seen neither Katie 
 King nor any other spirit, in full form, and I was not 
 entirely satisfied with the results of my labors. It was 
 here that Mme. de B. brought her wonderful power to 
 the test. Summoning John King, she intimated her 
 will that Katie should step out of the cabinet that even- 
 ing, and he wrote her with his own hand a message to 
 the effect that her orders should "be obeyed." This 
 communication is in my possession, and General Lippitt 
 has seen it. 
 
 A select company of six persons, besides the two 
 mediums, met at Mr. Holmes' residence at 8 o'clock, 
 and after taking the usual precautions against fraud 
 .(including a strange exercise of Mme. de B.'s power, 
 which threw Mrs. Holmes into a death-like trance, and 
 so made her perfectly incapable of resorting to trickery), 
 the light was dimmed, and we sat in silence waiting for 
 the working of the mystic spell. 
 
 Phenomenal disturbances soon began : raps were heard 
 all over the cabinet, various voices addressed us from 
 within its recesses, and a detached hand, coming oat of the 
 right aperture, and gliding down the face of the cabinet, 
 clutched a small hand-bell that stood upon a table, and, 
 ringing it all the while, rose again to the aperture and 
 disappeared with it, within. 
 
 This last manifestation was calculated to startle one 
 out of all his preconceived notions of both anatomy and 
 gravity, and it really gave to the seance a most uncanny 
 aspect. But the crowning test was to come. We heard 
 the bolt drawn inside, and in breathless silence watched 
 the cabinet door swing slowly open. I sat within a few 
 feet of the entrance, and plainly saw at the threshold a 
 short, thin, girlish figure, clad in white from crown to 
 sole. She stood there motionless for an instant, and 
 then slowly stepped forward a pace or two. By the 
 obscure light we could see that she was shorter and 
 much more delicately built than the medium, and her 
 dress with its trailing skirt, and the long veil that com- 
 pletely enveloped her form, were as crisp as though just 
 from the hands of the modiste. Who she was or what she 
 was, I do not know, but one thing I do know, — she was 
 not Jennie Holmes, nor any puppet or confederate of 
 
478 THE KATIE KING AFFAIR. 
 
 hers. And I know, further, that M:.\e. de B., who sat 
 next to me, uttered one word in a strange toi gue, and 
 the spectre immediately withdrew a;r noiselessly as she 
 had entered. 
 
 When the meeting broke up we found Mrs. Holmes in 
 her bag, with its unbroken seals, and in so deep a cata- 
 lepsy as to alarm Dr. Fellger at first. It was some 
 minutes before she had either respiration or a pulse ; and 
 as she is recovering I leave her and the case with these 
 conclusions : 
 
 (i). While it may be possible that either Eliza White 
 or somebody else assisted the Holmeses to deceive the 
 public, by personating Katie King, the evidence hitherto 
 attainable does not enable us to designate any one of the 
 phenomena observed and described by Mr. Owen or 
 General Lippitt as probably fraudulent. The accuser of 
 the Holmeses is apparently successfully impeached ; and 
 her indorser, Dr. Child, shown to be incompetent to 
 testify. 
 
 The decision of the moot question being, therefore, of 
 necessity made to depend upon the issue of my own 
 course of experiments : 
 
 (2). The real mediumship of both Nelson and Jennie 
 Holmes, and " especially the appearance of materialized 
 spirit-forms through the same," seem to be demonstrated. 
 
 (3). The Philadelphia experiments have a most impor- 
 tant bearing upon those of Mr. Crookes, in London, and 
 of myself, at Chittenden, Vt., and Havana, N. Y. 
 
 (4). The very grave question whether the visits and 
 behavior of spirits are within human control, is forced 
 upon our attention. Its examination, moreover, involves 
 the verification or rejection, by modern scientific pro- 
 cesses, of the Biblical, historical, and traditional accounts 
 of intercourse between man and the angel world ; the 
 definition of the laws of so-called Magic and Sorcery ; 
 the formulae of evocation and exorcism ; and the moral 
 effects of this intercourse upon humanity. 
 
 We cannot afford that another day shall be lost. 
 The Hour is come : let the Man step to the front. 
 
 l 
 
THE COMPTON TRANSFIGURATION. 
 
 I DO not know of any author who has defi ned the posi- 
 tion which the student of science occupies in our 
 day, better than Professor Huxley himself. In a 
 recent essay, he says : " The only opinion he (the 
 votary of scienc :) need care about, if he care for any — 
 and he is all the wiser and better if he care for none — 
 is that of about a dozen men, two or three in these 
 islands (Great Britain), as many in America, and half 
 a dozen on the continent. If these think well of his 
 work, his reputation is secure from all the attacks of 
 all the able editors of all the " influential organs" put 
 together." 
 
 With such encouraging words as these before me, I 
 shall proceed to tell the story of my remarkable 
 experience at Havana, N. Y., hoping at least to deserve 
 the good opinion of their author, and the dozen col- 
 leagues whom he had in mind while penning the 
 sentences above quoted. If Mr. Huxley is not now 
 willing to follow the theory of Evolution to its legiti- 
 mate conclusions, and discover to us man as he exists 
 in the spirit-world, there is satisfaction in knowing 
 that the time is not far distant when he will be com- 
 pelled, by the accumulation of phenomena similar to 
 those hereinafter described, to acknowledge that his 
 immortality is a demonstrable scientific problem. 
 
 At one of my last interviews with the alleged spirit 
 John King, in Philadelphia, he told me that if I would 
 go to the village of Havana, Schuyler County, New 
 York, I would see a phase of manifestation entirely 
 new to this country, and the precursor of a whole 
 
 17 
 
480 
 
 THE COM ETON TRANSFIGURATION. 
 
 series of unprecedented interest and importance. In 
 short, he gave me to understand that we were about to 
 witness the advent of the psychological mysteries which, 
 for many ages, have been confined to the temples and 
 pagodas of Egypt and Hindostan. 
 
 Acting upon this information I found myself in the 
 village designated, on the evening of the 29th of Jan- 
 uary, of the present year (1875). The medium I sought 
 was a poor woman, named Elizabeth J. Compton, liv- 
 ing with a second husband, and the mother of nine 
 children, of whom five girls and one boy are alive. 
 
 MRS. ELIZABETH J. COMPTON. 
 
 Her maiden name was Houghtenning, and she was 
 born August 16th, 1829. On September 3d, 1848, she 
 was married to George W. Souls, in the town of Bar- 
 rington, Yates County, N. Y. Her husband, Souls, 
 was for many years an invalid, and she supported the 
 whole family by the hard labor of washing. Her 
 rounded shoulders, angular frame, horny palm, and 
 the fingers bent out of shape by constant immersion in 
 the hot suds of the wash-tub, abundantly corroborate 
 the story of her faithful exertions and honest toil. 
 
 L 
 
MRS. COM r TON. 4S1 
 
 Coming of laboring people, marrying in her own 
 class, and having the cares of a large family so soon 
 thrust upon her, she had no time to obtain an educa- 
 tion, and she can neither read nor write. 
 
 Like the Eddys, she inherits mediumship, her pater- 
 nal grandmother and an aunt having been known as 
 "witches," and reported to possess the evil-eye. Her 
 maternal grandmother, an Indian squaw, was brought 
 up among the whites, but was not unfamiliar with the 
 rude sorceries that prevailed among her people. Like 
 the case of the Eddys, also, the mechanic power 
 descends to her children. I sat at a table alone with 
 the youngest, a pretty little girl of five years, and with 
 my hand laid upon her tiny little hands, the rappings 
 occurred all over the table. This child is also said 
 to be clairvoyant, as well as several of her sisters. 
 
 Mrs. Compton first saw a spirit when a child of 
 "nine years, and after that her lucidity was frequently 
 demonstrated. The exceedingly limited space at my 
 command forbids mention of many instances, related to 
 me by herself, of visions, prophetic warnings, and 
 encounters with spiritual beings that occurred in her 
 experience. Suffice it to say that they were of a charac- 
 ter similar to those which have been fully described in 
 this book in connection with the psychological history 
 of the members of the Eddy family. 
 
 . Her mediumship for physical phenomena dates 
 from March 1873, when a neighbor, calling in one 
 evening, proposed that they should " form a circle " in 
 the chamber where Mr. Souls was lying sick. She 
 was so little familiar with Spiritualism that she sup- 
 posed the circle meant was the " praying-circle " of the 
 Methodists, and readily consented. A table was drawn 
 up near the bed, and, taking their places at it, she says 
 she was astonished to hear rappings under their hands, 
 and still more so when a communication was spelled out, 
 purporting to come from a young man named Melville 
 Barton, who had been murdered a day or two before, 
 and for whose body search was then being made. The 
 spirit described the murder, and indicated where his 
 body would be found ; which information the next day 
 proved to be true. 
 
 Sittings of a similar character were held frequently 
 after this, and the rappings grew louder and louder. 
 Mr. Souls finally died, and then he, too, began to 
 
 ■■ 
 
 BBE 
 
482 THE COM P TON TRANSFIGURATION. 
 
 manifest his presence in the spirit, One night a slate 
 belonging to Mr. Souls was lying upon a projecting 
 timber in the room, and she heard the noise of the 
 pencil moving over its surface, although no person 
 was near it. Upon examination, it was discovered 
 that a communication had been written upon the slate 
 by an invisible hand ; and after that this form of man- 
 ifestation was repeated very frequently. 
 
 On the evening of the 12th of February 1874, her 
 present husband, Mr. Compton, being at the house, it 
 was proposed that they should try to get " materializa- 
 tions," and accordingly a blanket was tacked over a 
 door-way for the experiment. Six spirit-hands were 
 shown around the edges of the blanket, and the affair 
 becoming known, the experiment was repeated in 
 many houses in Havana and the adjacent village of 
 Watkins, with uniformly satisfactory results. Before 
 long, the figure of a spirit-child appeared, and then 
 faces and busts of various persons were shown. In 
 April, the spirits began to talk in their own voices, 
 and flowers and other material objects were displayed. 
 
 On the 6th of September, a young girl, calling her- 
 self Katie Brink, an Indian warrior of the Seneca tribe, 
 and a squaw named "Starlight" stepped out of the 
 improvised cabinet, in full form. Since the date men- 
 tioned, only six different spirits have walked out, viz: 
 Katie Brink, the Seneca, Starlight, Katie Weaver, a 
 Mrs. Rhodes and the Rev. Gardiner Crum. No more 
 than three have appeared upon any one evening, and 
 usually only two — Seneca and Katie Brink — are seen. 
 
 Such are the statements made to me by Mrs. Compton 
 and corroborated by other persons. I repeat them 
 without comment. 
 
 The seances are now held in a second-story chamber, 
 fifteen feet square, and devoted exclusively to this pur- 
 pose. Across one corner, a plastered partition has 
 been run, forming a triangular cupboard, or closet, 
 just large enough to admit of a person sitting in the 
 apex of the triangle. There is no window, trap or 
 outlet, the walls being all solid, and the floor securely 
 fastened down, with the boards running under the 
 mop-board, except one which is badly matched ; but 
 this is nailed to the joists by a dozen nails, and cannot 
 be pried up without breaking it into pieces. The 
 angles of three rooms join directly underneath this 
 
 L 
 
THE "BRIDE OF CORINTH." 
 
 483 
 
 cabinet, and the ceilings of all are perfectly solid. The 
 following sketch gives an idea of the external appear- 
 ance of the cabinet. 
 
 It will be observed that there is no aperture in the 
 wall, but an open space is left by sawing off the upper 
 
 MRS. COMPTON'S CABINET. 
 
 portion of the door ; across this opening a curtain of 
 black muslin stretches upon a wire inside the frame. 
 
 My first seance with the medium was on the evening 
 of January 30th. The spectators, numbering a half- 
 dozen sat upon chairs in the room, about eight feet from 
 the cabinet. Mrs. Compton took her seat on the chair 
 inside, the lamp in the room was turned down very 
 low, and for a long time nothing interesting occurred. 
 Finally the door opened and the figure of an Indian 
 appeared on the threshold, spoke to us, greeted me 
 cordially, but did not emerge, as he said the medium 
 was in too weak and prostrated a condition to afford 
 him the power requisite. 
 
 The following evening, the girl Katie Brink showed 
 herself, and walked about, touching various persons, 
 patting their heads and cheeks. Clad in a flowing robe 
 of crisp white muslin, her head covered with a bride-veil 
 that fell down to her knees, gliding about with velvet 
 
484 THE CO MP TON TRANSFIGURATION. 
 
 footsteps, speechless, and half-seen in the obscurity, she 
 reminded me of Goethe's Bride of Corinth : 
 
 " By the waning lamp's uncertain gleaming 
 There he sees a youthful maiden stand, 
 
 Robed in white, of still and gentle seeming, 
 On her brow a black and golden band." 
 
 Passing from the other spectators, she came to me, 
 sitting apart and with one hand laid against the cabinet 
 wall, and first gently stroking my head, she sat upon my 
 knee, and passing an arm over my shoulder kissed me 
 upon my left cheek. Her weight seemed scarcely as 
 much as that of a child of eight years, but her arm felt 
 solid upon my shoulder, and the lips that caressed me 
 were as natural as life. By pre-arrangement, I passed 
 into the cabinet, while the girl was outside, and found no 
 medium there, although I not only examined every nook, 
 but, the better to assure myself that I was not 'psycholo- 
 gized,' felt the chair, the walls and all the space about. 
 
 There could be but one alternative here : Either the 
 ' spirit ' was no spirit, but the medium, or, the medium 
 had been transfigured, after the fashion of the Oriental 
 thaumaturgists. I determined to settle that question 
 conclusively before leaving town. 
 
 The next evening, having obtained Mrs. Compton's 
 cheerful consent to submit to my tests, I removed her 
 earrings, and seating her in the chair in the cabinet, 
 fastened her in it bypassing some "No. 50" sewing- 
 thread through the perforations in her ears, and sealing 
 the ends to the back of the chair, with sealing-wax, which 
 I stamped with my private signet. I then fastened the 
 chair to the floor, with thread and wax in a secure 
 manner. 
 
 Observe, in the sketch, how impossible it was for her 
 to move an inch from her place : she could not have been 
 more firmly fixed to her seat, if irons had been passed 
 through her flesh, and riveted in the wood. A slight pull 
 would suffice to snap the frail thread, and betray her 
 attempt to cheat. 
 
 The persons present, beside myself and the medium, 
 were John S. Smith, and J. H. Hardy, of Elmira, N. Y ; 
 Mrs. Florence Beardsley, of London, Canada; Benjamin 
 Wickes, of Havana, N. Y; David Lee, of Washington; 
 Mrs. Margaret Compton, of Havana ; William Anderson 
 and friend, of Watkins ; Mr. Peter Compton ; and two of 
 
A CRUCIAL TEST. 
 
 435 
 
 the medium's little girls. All but myself sat upon chairs 
 placed in a double row opposite the cabinet door; and I 
 took my place near the railing of the stairway, not more 
 than five feet from the same. In front of me stood a 
 Fairbanks platform-scale, which, in hope of verifying the 
 Chittenden weighing experiment, I had procured for the 
 occasion. 
 
 The light being lowered, as is usual in these seances, 
 and the cabinet-door closed, we sang vigorously for some 
 minutes, when across the aperture above the door floated 
 a pair of hands, from left to right,and then disappeared. 
 Then came another pair of larger size ; and then a voice, 
 (which, if not that of the late Daniel Webster, was its 
 
 MRS. COMPTON SECURED. 
 
 counterpart in depth, sonorousness, and fullness of tone 
 as I recall it to memory), addressed me, giving me full 
 instructions and cautions as to how I was to proceed. 
 In entering the cabinet while the spirit was outside, I 
 was at liberty to feel everywhere, and satisfy myself that 
 the medium was not there, but I must be careful not to 
 actually touch the chair. I might pass my hands as near 
 it as I chose, but actual contact with its substance I was 
 requested to avoid. Then, again, I was to lay upon the 
 platform of the scale a covering of some kind so that the 
 
486 
 
 THE CO MP TON TRANSFIGURATION. 
 
 spirit need not come into contact with the wood or metal. 
 I promised compliance, and soon had the satisfaction 
 to see the white-robed girl in the open doorway. She 
 stepped out, moved around, touched several persons, and 
 then approached the scale. I sat ready with one hand 
 upon the poise and the other at the end of the beam, and 
 as she stepped up, took her weight without the loss of a 
 second. She then retired into the cabinet; whereupon, 
 lighting a parlor-match, I read the figures. She weighed 
 
 WEIGHING THE SPIRIT-GIRL. 
 
 only seventy-seven lbs., although she had not the stature 
 of a child. Can the reader imagine my feelings as I sat 
 there in the gloom, not more than a foot-and-a-half from 
 a speechless and veiled figure, a supposed visitor from 
 the other world, who had gathered unto herself an evan- 
 escent corporeal body, of which my scales could now take 
 cognizance, and the next moment would be dissipated 
 into a vapor more unsubstantial than the electric fluid 
 itself? This was, indeed, being face to face with the 
 dead, or rather with the quick who had tasted death, and 
 
ORDEAL BY WEIGHT. 487 
 
 passed on into an immortal life where death is known no 
 more, and the grave is regarded as the birth-bed of the 
 human race. 
 
 The spirit came out again, and then I entered the 
 cabinet, looking carefully everywhere, and feeling 
 cautiously but thoroughly all about, but, as before, 
 finding no vestige of the medium. The chair was there, 
 but no bodily presence sat in it. 
 
 I then asked the spirit-girl to make herself lighter 
 if possible and she stepped again upon my scales. As 
 rapidly as before, I got the beam at poise, and, she 
 retiring as before, I read the figure— fifty-nine pounds. 
 
 She appeared yet again, and this time passed from 
 one to another of the spectators, patting this one's 
 head, the other's hand, sitting upon Mr. Hardy's knee, 
 laying her hand gently upon my head, stroking my 
 cheek, and then mounting the scale for me to make my 
 final test. This time she weighed only fifty-two pounds, 
 although from first to last there had been no apparent 
 alteration in her dress or bulk. 
 
 The scientific reader will now recall the weighing 
 of Honto by Mr. Pritchard, and be pleased to see the 
 figures in comparison with those above : 
 
 Spirit " Honto." 
 
 Spirit " Katie Brink." 
 
 1st weighing, 1 88 lbs. 
 2d " 58 " 
 3d " 58 " 
 4th " 65 " 
 
 1st weighing, 
 
 2d 
 
 3d 
 
 77 lbs. 
 
 59 " 
 
 52 •< 
 
 Average, 67% lbs. 
 
 Average, 
 
 62% lbs. 
 
 It is quite unnecessary to dwell upon the importance 
 of these experiments as opening up a most remarkable 
 field of scientific inquiry. It is to be regretted that I 
 was prevented, (by the necessity of completing this 
 volume to fulfill publishers' engagements), from pursu- 
 ing the subject; but a beginning has, at least, been 
 made. I should add that the ascertained stature of 
 Honto is 5 feet 5 inches; while that of the Havana 
 spirit, as by actual measurement, varied within ten 
 minutes, from 4 feet 10^ to 4 feet 8f. These measure- 
 ments were not taken upon the same evening as the 
 weighing, but at the preceding seance. Upon this 
 occasion I found Mrs. Compton's height to be 5ft. 4 
 inches, and the Indian chiefs 5ft. 5f inches. 
 
 After the weighing " Katie" appeared no more; but 
 17* 
 
488 THE COM P TON TRANSFIGURATION. 
 
 after a few minutes had elapsed we were addressed in 
 the guttural base of the Indian chief, and he showed 
 himself at the door. A colloquy ensued in the Indian 
 language between him and Mr. Hardy, who lived some 
 years among the Western tribes, and who certified to 
 the reality of the speech uttered by the spectre chief. 
 The Seneca again could not come out because of alleged 
 lack of power, but before retiring he gave a terrific 
 war-whoop that made the rafters ring again, and then 
 a peace-whoop as an adieu. This " manifestation " 
 alone would seem to indicate that the poor, nervously 
 fluttering medium had no part in the appearance of at 
 least this one spectre. 
 
 After the brave's retirement, we had some more 
 conversation with sundry spirit-voices, and then the 
 light being turned up, various faces floated into sight 
 above the door and faded away, and then the circle 
 closed. 
 
 I went inside with a lamp, and found . . . the 
 medium just as I left her at the beginning of the seance, 
 with every thread unbroken and every seal undisturbed! 
 She sat. there, with her head leaning against the wall, 
 her flesh as pale and as cold as marble, her eyeballs 
 turned up beneath the lids, her forehead covered with 
 a death-like damp, no breath coming from her lungs, 
 and no pulse at her wrist. When every person had 
 examined the threads and seals, I cut the flimsy bonds 
 with a pair of scissors, and, lifting the chair by its back 
 and seat, carried the cataleptic woman out into the 
 open air of the chamber. 
 
 She lay thus inanimate for eighteen minutes; life 
 gradually coming back to her body, until respiration 
 and pulse and the temperature of her skin became 
 
 normal I then put her upon the scale. .... 
 
 She weighed one hundred and twenty-one pounds I 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 OF SPIRITUALISM AND THE OCCULT SCIENCES. 
 
 Compiled for "People from the Other World" by W. I. 
 Fletcher, Ass't. Librarian of the Watkinson Library of Reference, 
 Hartford, Conn., in which library a large proportion of the rare 
 books in the early part of the list may be found. 
 
 It will be noticed that in consequence of lack of space the depart- 
 ments of Astrology, Mythology, Folk-Lore, Speculative Philosophy, 
 Theology and many others cognate to our subject have not been 
 entered. For the same reason, I omit very recent works^ upon 
 ■Spiritualism. 
 
 BATE. 
 
 B.C. 
 
 475. Plato 
 
 20. Plutarch. . 
 
 A. D. 
 
 50. Cicero. . 
 150. Apuleius, L. 
 
 (?) 475. Proclus 
 
 (?) 1300. Bacon, R. . 
 
 1324. Letlrede, R. de. . 
 
 1450. Anania, J. L. d' 
 (?) 1480. Institoris, H. 
 
 1483. Basin, B. C. . 
 (?) 1489. Molitor, U. 
 
 1514. Reuchliuus, J. 
 
 1517. 
 (?) 1520, Champier, B. C. S. . 
 
 1521. Prierio, S. dc. 
 
 1531. Aggrippa von Nettesheim 
 
 1544. Molitor, U. 
 
 1547. Ciruelo, M. 
 
 1553. Peucer, C. 
 
 1561. Coxe. F. 
 
 1563. Wier, J. ... 
 
 1567. Cattanl, F. da D. . 
 
 1570. Lavater, L. 
 
 1575. Hcmmingius.N. 
 
 1578. Node, F. P. . . 
 
 1579. Masse, P. 
 
 1580. Bodin, J. 
 
 1580. Mengus, H. 
 ir-81. Anania, J. L. d'. 
 
 1581. Andreas Hyperius. 
 
 1583. Vair, L. du. 
 
 1584. Scott, Reginald. 
 
 1586. Loier, P. de. 
 
 1587. Faust. 
 1587. Gyfford. G. . 
 
 1589. Porta, J. B. 
 
 1590. Holland, H. 
 
 1591. Binsfeld, P. 
 1591. Godelmann, J.G. 
 
 1596. Lodge, T-. 
 
 1597. James VI. 
 
 1598. Goldschmid, P- 
 
 1598. Taillepied, N. 
 
 1599. Davies, Sir J. 
 
 H. S. O. 
 
 TITLE. 
 
 . De rebus divinis dlalogi. 
 Moralia. 
 
 . De dlvinatione, de fato, etc. 
 
 De deo Socratis. 
 . De anlma atque demonae. 
 
 Miracles of art, nature and magiclc. 
 . Proceedings against, dame Kyteler. 
 
 De magia et maleflciis. 
 . Malleus malencarum. 
 . Tractatus de magicis artibus. 
 
 De lamiis et phitonicis mulicribus. 
 . De verbo miriflco. 
 
 De arte cabalistica. 
 
 Magicarum artium destructionem. 
 . Strigimagarum daemonunique mirandis. 
 C. De occulta philosophia. 
 . Hexen Mysterei. 
 
 Reprovaciones de las superstitlones. 
 . De praecipuis divinationum generibus. 
 
 Detestable wickedness of mag. sciences. 
 . Die praestigiis daemonum. 
 
 Superstizione dell' arte niaglca. 
 . De spectris, lemuribus, etc. 
 
 De superstitionibus magicis vitandis. 
 . Erreur execrable desmaiinciers.sorciers. 
 
 De Timposture et tromperie des diables. 
 
 • La Demonomanie des sorciers. 
 Flagellum daemonum. 
 
 • De natura daemonum. 
 
 The deuils shewers of magical artcs, etc. 
 . De fascino. 
 
 Discovery of witchcraft. 
 . Spectres, visions, and apparitions. 
 
 Zauberer und Schwartzkunstler. 
 . Subtle practices of deuils. 
 
 Magiae naturaliB. 
 . Treatise against witchcraft. 
 
 De confessionibus maleflcorum. 
 . De magis, veneflcis et lamiis. 
 
 The deuil conjured. 
 . Demonology, in form of a dialogue. 
 
 Der hollische Morpheus. 
 . Psicologie, ou l'apparition des esprits. 
 
 Nosce te ipsum. 
 
 Note. The titles are arranged according to date of publication. Only the first 
 edition of each work is given, and no account is made of translations. 
 
 4 8 9 
 
49° BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 159?. Del Rio, M. A Disquisitionum magicarum, 
 
 1600. Darrell, J "Vexation by the devil of seven persons. 
 
 1600. Michaelis, F. S Discourse of spirits. 
 
 (?) 160m. Boissard, J. J. . . . De divinatione, de geniis, etc. 
 
 1601. Deacon and Walker. . . Dialogicall discourses of Devils. 
 
 1601. Heilbronn, J. ... Daemonomania pistoriana. 
 
 1602. Boquet, H. .... Discours execrable des sorciers. 
 1610. Hildebrandt, W. Magiae naturalis. 
 
 1612. Mason, J. ..... The anatomie of sorcerle. 
 
 1613. Lancre, P. de Tableau des mauvais anges et demons. 
 
 1613. Michaelis, F .S. . . . History of a magician. 
 
 1613. Salkeld, J. . ... A treatise on angels. 
 
 1617. " " A treatise of Paradise. 
 
 1620. Campanella, T De sensu rerum. 
 
 1626. Guaccius, M. ... Compendium maleficarum. 
 
 1627. Niess, J Alphabetum diaboli. 
 
 1639. Roscetti, G De angelis et daemonibus. 
 
 1641. Castrensis, S. R. . . . De spiritibus. 
 
 1641. Le Petit, C De spiritibus creatis daemonibus, etc. 
 
 1650. Vaughn, T. .... Anima magica abscondita. 
 
 1651. " " .... Lumen delumine; or, The new mag. light. 
 1651. Bekker, B Te betoouerde weereld. 
 
 1656. Grosse, H Magica de spectris et apparitionibus. 
 
 1658. Bromhall Treatise of spirits. 
 
 1658. Perreau, F Dem. ou traite des demons et sorciers. 
 
 1659. Relation of what passed between John Dee and some spirits. 
 
 1661. Praetorius, J Thesaurus chiromantise. 
 
 1662. Glanvil, J Lux orien : eastern sages on pre-exist. 
 
 1663. Spencer, J. .... Discourse concerning prodigies. 
 1666. Glanvill, J A blow at modern Sadducism. 
 
 1670. Villars, Abbe de. ... Comte de Gab. ou ent. sur les scl. sec. 
 
 1677. Webster, J Displaying of supposed witchcraft. 
 
 1678. Doctrine of Devils the grand apostacy of these later times. 
 
 1680. Lebenwald, A Cu. trakt. von des teufel in der Heb. Cab. 
 
 1680. " " Damographia, etc. 
 
 1684. Bovet. R Pandemoniun; or, the devil's cloyster. 
 
 1685. Angeliere, B Lux magica. 
 
 1685. Sinclair, G Satan's invisible world discovered. 
 
 1686. Mather, I. .... Superstitious customs in New England. 
 1689. Mather, C Late memorable providences. 
 
 1691. De Daillon, M. ... Explication de la doctrine des demons. 
 
 1692. Mather, C Tryals of divers witches at Salem. 
 
 1693. Lebrun, P L'illusion des philosophessur la baguette. 
 
 1693. Mather, C Wonders of the invisible world. 
 
 1693. Mather, I Further account of tryals of witches. 
 
 1693. Vallemont, P La physique occulte. 
 
 1694. Burthogge, R. . . . Essay upon the nature of spirits. 
 
 1696. Telfair, A. . . . , . Acts, of spt. wch. infested h. A. Mackle. 
 
 1699. Burthogge, R. ... Of the soul of the world. 
 
 1700. Poupart, F Sue l'apparition des esprits. 
 
 1703. Buesching, G, ... De potentia diaboli in corpora. 
 
 1703. Reichen, J Unfug des hexenprocessen. 
 
 1705. Beaumont, J. jr. . . . Treatise of spirits, apparitions, etc. 
 
 1705. Goldschmidt, P Hexen— und zauber— advocat. 
 
 1710. Bordelon.L Imaginations extravagantes de M. Oufle. 
 
 1712. Naude, G Apol. pour les personages de magie, etc. 
 
 1712. Stebbing, H Case of the Hertfordshire witchcraft. 
 
 1714. Meisner, I De apparitionibus daetnonum. 
 
 1715. Mercklin, G. A. . . . Tractatus de incantamentis. 
 
 1715. Boulton, B. .... History of magic, sorcery, witchcraft. 
 
 1716. Reuter, S. H. ... Das Reich des Teufels. 
 
 1716. Sturmy, D The separate state of souls. 
 
 1718. Hutchinson, F. . , . Historical essay on witchcraft. 
 1718. Secrets merveilleux de la magie du Petit Albert. 
 
 1720. De Foe, D Life and adven. of Duncan Campbell. 
 
 1721. Aubrey, J Miscellanies : [app. knocking**, etc.] 
 
 1722. Boulton, R Vindication of This] history of magic. 
 
 1726. Glanvill, J. .... Sadducismus triumphatis. 
 
 1727. De Foe, D History and reality of apparitions. 
 
 1727. " " . .... System of maglck. 
 
 1728. Du Lude, Comte. . . . Daimonologia; or, a treatise of spts. 
 
 1729. Byler, H. Cyan. . . . Tract, cab. chym. philos. malleus. 
 
 1732. Le Brun, P Histoire des pratiques superstitieuses. 
 
 1733. Boyer,— . .... Coup d'oeil sur les convulsions. 
 1735. Gilpin. R Demonologia sacra. 
 
 1737. Montgeron, L, B. C. de. . La verite des miracles. 
 
 1739. Hauber, E. D Bibliotheca acta et scripta magica. 
 
 1745. Perronet.V Enquiries relating to spiritual beings. 
 
 1751. Calmet, A Traite sur les apparitions des esprits. 
 
 1751. Lenglet du Fresnoy, N. . Traite sur les apparitions. 
 
 1767. Cauz, C. F. de De cultibus magicis. 
 
 1770. Compleat wizard; narratives of ghosts, demons, and spectres. 
 
 1775. Farmer, H Demoniacks of the New Testament. 
 
 1775. Haen, A. de De magi. 
 
 L 
 
BIBLIOGRAPH Y. 49 1 
 
 1777. Worthington, W. . . The gospel demonlacka. 
 
 1779. Fell, J. • Demoniacs. 
 
 1781. Halle, J. S Magle, oder zauperkrafte tier natur. 
 
 1781. Mayer, J. G. . . Hlstoria diaboll. 
 
 1784. Decremps, M* ... La magle blanche devollee. 
 
 1783. Farmer, H Wor. of hum. spts. by ancient heathens. 
 
 1790. Libby, E Astrology; or, ill. of occult sciences. 
 
 1797. Dedekind, G. E. W. . . , Dokinaion; oder Geister der verst. etc. 
 
 1801. Barrett, F. . The magus, or celestial intelligencer. 
 
 1805. Bentley, J The spiritual telescope. 
 
 1807. Sharp, G Case of Saul, and influence of demons. 
 
 1808. Jung-Stilling, J. H. . . Theorie der Geisterkunde. 
 
 1813. Brand, J. . . . . Observations on popular antiquites. 
 
 1813. Ferriar, J. .... Essay towards a theory of apparitions. 
 
 1818. Garlnet, J Histoire de la magie en France. 
 
 1818. Horst, G. C Damonomagie. 2v. 
 
 1818. Plaucy, C. de. . Dlctionnaire Infernal. 2 v. 
 
 1821. Horst, G. C. . . . . Zauberblbliothek. 6. v. 
 
 1823. Accredited ghost stories, to counteract the vulgar belief. 
 
 1823. Stewart, W. G. ... Popular superstitions of Highlanders. 
 
 1824. Hlbbert, S Philosopny of apparitions. 
 
 1825. Carlyle.W Essay on evil spirits. 
 
 1830. Horst. G. C Deuteros. oder, etc., der pneumatologle. 
 
 1830. Newnham, W. ... Essay on superstition. 
 
 1830. Scott, Sir W Letters on demonology and witchcraft. 
 
 1831. Demonologiaj an expose of superstitions ; by J. S. F. 
 
 1831. Upham, C. W. . . . Lectures on Salem witchcraft. 
 
 1834. Godwin, W Lives of the necromancers. 
 
 1834. Stilling, W Der Zusamm. der Lele mit Gelsterwelt. 
 
 1835. Thaumaturgla ; or, elucidations of the marvellous. 
 
 1841. Mackay, C Extraordinary popular delusions. 
 
 v 1842. Ennemoser, J. ... Der magnetismus. 
 
 1843. Franck, A La Kabbale. 
 
 1843. Scott, Rev. Walter. . . Existence of evil spirits proved. 
 
 1843. Soldan, W. G Geschichte der hexenprocesse. 
 
 1845, Davis, A. J Principles of nature. 
 
 1845. Scheible, J Das Kloster, weltlich und geistllch. 
 
 1846. Giraldo, M. de. ... Hist. sore, dev., mag., vamp., etc. 
 
 1846. Scheible,J Das Schaltjahr, welch, ist der teu. Kalen. 
 
 1847. Deucly, W. C. ... Philosophy of mystery. 
 
 1849. Crowe Mrs. C Night side of nature : or, ghosts, etc. 
 
 1850. Burnett, CM. ... The philosophy of spirits. 
 
 1850. Davis, A. J The great harmonia. 6 v. 
 
 1851. Colquhoun, J. C. . . . History of magic. 
 
 1851. Davis, A. J. Philosophy of spiritual intercourse. 
 
 1851. Wright, T. .... Narratives of magic, sorcery, etc. 
 
 1852. Elliott, C. W Mysteries, or glimpses of the supernat. 
 
 1852. Hammer— Purgstall, J. . Geisterlehre der Moslimen. 
 
 1852. The spiritual medium ; its nature illustrated. 
 
 1853. Beecher, C. .... Keview of "spiritual" manifestations. 
 1855. Capron, E. W. . . . Mod. spiritualism; facts and fanaticisms. 
 1853. Edmonds, J. W. and Dexter, G. T. Spiritualism. 
 
 1853. Ghost stories ; edited by T. M. Jarvis. 
 
 1853. Ross, J. H The spirit-world; or, the caviller ans. 
 
 1853. Spirit-rappings in England and America. 
 
 1853. Webber, C. W Spiritual vampirism. 
 
 1854. Brownson.O. A. . . . The spirit-rapper ; an autobiography. 
 1854. Apocatastasis, The; or, progress backwards. 
 
 1854. Radcliffe, J. N. . . . Fiends, ghosts, and spirits. 
 
 (?) 1855. Dods, J. B Spt. manifes. examined and explained. 
 
 1855. Hare, R Spiritualism scientifically explained. 
 
 1855. Linton, C Healing of the nations. 
 
 1855. Mattlson, H Spirit-rapping unveiled. 
 
 1855. Schleiden, M. J Uber Zauberei und Geisterspuk. 
 
 1855. Smedley, E., and others. . History of the occult sciences. 
 
 1855. Tuttle, H Scenes in the spirit-world. 
 
 1856. Davis, A. J Penetralia; ans. to important questions. 
 
 1856. Salverte, E Des sciences occultes. 
 
 1856. Daniels, J. W. ... Spiritualism vs. Christianity. 
 
 1856. Maitland, Rev. Dr. . . . Science and superstition. 
 
 (?) 1856. Ramsay, W Spiritualism a Satanic delusion. 
 
 (?) 1856. Young, Jacob Autobiography. 
 
 1857. Guldenstubbe, L. de. . Reallte des esprits. 
 
 1857. The spiritualist ; an exposition of psychology. 
 
 (?) 1858. Brittan, S. B. and Hanson, D. D.Oral discussion at Hartford. 
 
 1858. Bushnell, H. .... Nature and the supernatural. 
 
 1858. Wilkinson. W. M.. . . Spirit drawings ; a personal narrative. 
 
 1859. Owen, R. D. ... Footfa. on the bound, of another world. 
 (?) 1859. Samson, G. W Spiritualism tested. 
 
 1860. Jones, J Natural and the Supernatural. 
 
 1860. La Grange, A/F. de. . . Le grand livre de festln. 
 
 1860. Tuttle, H Arcana of spiritualism. 
 
 1861. Levi, E La haute magie. 
 
49* 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 1861. Linden, E.L. (ed.) . . . "Witch stories. 
 
 1862. Michelet. J La sorclere. 
 
 1862. Welby, H Signs before death and auth'cat'd app'ns. 
 
 1863. Bizouard, J Rapports de l'liomme avec le demon. 
 
 1863. Denton, W and E. . . . The soul of things. 
 
 1863. From matter to spirit; experience of spirit manifestations. 
 
 1863. Home, D. D Incidents in my life. 
 
 1863. Howitt, W History of the supernatural. 
 
 1863. Mary Jane : or spiritualism chemically explained. 
 
 1864. De Caston, M Les marchandes de miracles. 
 
 1864. Gastineau, B Monsieur et Madame Satan. 
 
 1864. Maury, A La magic et l'astrologie. 
 
 1864, Mousseaux, C. des. ... La magie au 19e siecle. 
 
 1864. " '*..... Phenomenes de la magie. 
 
 1865. Gould, S. Baring. . . . Book of were-wolves. 
 
 1865. Blanc, H Le merveilleux dans le spiritisms, etc. 
 
 1865. Kardec, A Le ciel et l'enfer, selon le spiritisme. 
 
 1865. Levi, E Le science des esprlts. 
 
 1865. Remarks on certain phenomena. 
 1865. Spiritualism and other signs ; by E. S. 
 
 1865. Mousseaux, C. des. . . . Moeurs et pratiques des demons. 
 
 1866. Lecky, W. E. H History of rationalism in Europe. 
 
 1867. Ashburner, J Animal magnetism and spiritualism. 
 
 1867. The invisibles j an explanation of phenomena called spiritual. 
 
 1867. Kardec, A Le Uvre des esprits. 
 
 1867. " " Le livre des mediums. 
 
 1867. TJpham, C. W History of Salem witchcraft. 
 
 1868. Blauvelt, A The kingdom of Satan. 
 
 1868. Brown, J. P The dervishes ; or oriental spiritualism. 
 
 1868. Kardec, A Le genese et les miracles selon le sptsme. 
 
 1869. Biddle, D. . . . . . The spirit controversy. 
 
 1869. Phelps, E. S Gates ajar. 
 
 1869. Roskoff, G Geschlchte des Teufels. 
 
 1869. Sargent, E. . . . . Planchette, the despair of science. 
 
 1869. Peeble, J. M Seers of the Ages. 
 
 1870. Hardinge, E History of spiritualism in America. 
 
 1870. Randolph, P. B. . . . After Death. 
 
 1871. Delaporte The d-1; does he exist andwh'tdoeshe do. 
 
 1871. McRae, T Lectures on Satan. 
 
 1871. Massey, G Concerning spiritualism. 
 
 1871. Owen, R. D Deb't'ble land bet. this w'ld and the n'xt. 
 
 1871. Reville, A The d-1 ; origin greatness and decadence. 
 
 1871. Tyler, E. B. ..... Primitive culture. 
 
 1872. Beard, J. R. . Autobiography of Satan. 
 1872. Cobbe, Frances P. . . . Darwinism In'morals. 
 
 1872. Cox, E. W. .... Spiritualism answered by science. 
 
 1873. Crosland, N". . . . . New theory of apparitions. 
 1873. De Vere, M. S Modern magic. 
 
 1873. Lum, D. D The spiritual delusion. 
 
 1873. Owen, R. D. . Threading my way ; 27 years of my auto. 
 1873. "Where are the dead? or spiritualism explained. 
 
 1873. Zerffi, G. G Spiritualism and. inimal magnetism. 
 
 1873. London Dialectical Soc'y. . Report on Spiritualism. 
 
 1873. Davis, A. J The Diakka and the Earthly Victims. 
 
 1874. Crookes, W Researches in the phenomena of sp't'sm. 
 
 1S74. Lenormant, F La magie chez les Chaldeens. 
 
 1874. Laville, B. W Apparitions ; a narrative of facts. 
 
 1874. Wallace, A. R Defence of modern spiritualism. 
 
 1874. Peebles, J. M., and J. O. Bassett.The Gadarene. 
 
 1874. Crowell, E. W Identity bet. Prim. Chr. and Mod. Spm. 
 
 1875. Sargent, E Proof palpable of immortality. 
 
 1875. Olcott, H. S People from the other World. 
 
 Note. The above list, Imperfect as I have been forced to make It, indicates In a 
 slight degree the attention which has been given by writers, during the past 
 twenty-four centuries, to the subject of man's relation to the other world. But 
 orientalists can quote to the student a list, almost as long, of works of a like 
 character, among the Chinese, Japanese, Hindoos, Egyptian, Arabs, and other 
 "Heathen "nations, the authorship of which is, In many case* lost among the 
 mists of antiquary. Without recourse to these, however, enough titles are herein 
 
 firen to show that spiritualism is "modern " only in name ; while, upon consul t- 
 ug their pages, the reader will be astounded at the multitudinous prototypes, 
 which exist of every " manifestation " reported as occurring in these latter days 
 in the presence of mediums. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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