A
MODERN PANARION
A COLLECTION OF FUGITIVE FRAGMENTS
FROM THE PEN OF
H. P. BLAVATSKY
{2003 Scanned from and Edited to}
A FACSIMILE OF THE
ORIGINAL EDITION OF 1895
THE THEOSOPHY COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A.
1981
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
The Eddy Manifestations
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . .1
Dr. Beard Criticized . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
The Lack of Unity among Spiritualists . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
The Holmes Controversy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
The Holmes Controversy (continued) . . . . . . . . . . . .28
Notice to Mediums. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35
A Rebuke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36
Occultism or Magic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Spiritualistic Tricksters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
The Search after Occultism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
The Science of Magic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55
An Unsolved Mystery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Spiritualism in Russia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Spiritualism and Spiritualists. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72
What is Occultism? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78
A Warning to Mediums. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
(New) York against Lankester.- A new War of the Roses. . . . . . .84
Huxley and Shade. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88
Can the Double Murder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Fakirs and Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .103
A Protest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
The Fate of the Occultist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Buddhism in America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Russian Atrocities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Washing the Disciples’ Feet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Trickery or Magic ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .121
The Jews in Russia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
H. P. Blavatsky’s Masonic Patent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .128
Views of the Theosophists . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
A Society without a Dogma. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Elementaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Kabalistic Views of ‘‘Spirits” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
The Knout. As Wielded by the Great Russian Theosophist. Mr. Coleman’s
First Appearance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
iv
Contents
Page
Indian Metaphysics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
“H. M.’’ and the Todas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
The Todas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
The Ahkoond of Swat. The Founder of Many Mystical Societies . . . . . 179
The Ærya Samàj . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .184
Parting Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .188
‘Not a Christian”! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
The Retort Courteous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
‘‘Scrutator Again’’
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
198
Magic
. .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
199
A Republican Citizen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
The Theosophists and their Opponents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Echoes from India. What is Hindu Spiritualism?. . . . . . . . . . . .214
Missionaries Militant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
The History of a “Book” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
A French View of Women’s Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Occult Phenomena . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Hindu Widow-Marriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
“Oppressed Widowhood” in America. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
‘‘Esoteric Buddhism’’ and its Critic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .249
Mr. A. Lillie’s Delusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
What is Theosophy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
What are the Theosophists? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
Antiquity of the Vedas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
Persian Zoroastrianism and Russian Vandalism. . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Cross and Fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
War in Olympus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
A Land of Mystery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
Which First—the Egg or the Bird?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
The Pralaya of Modern Science. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
The Yoga Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338
A Year of Theosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .348
“A Word with Our Friends”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .353
Questions Answered about Yoga Vidyâ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .357
The Missing Link . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
Hypnotism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
The Leaven of Theosophy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
Count St. Germain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
Lamas and Druses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .375
A Reply to Our Critics. Our Final Answer to Several Objections. . . . . . . . 387
‘‘The Claims of Occultism’’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392
A Note on Eliphas Levi. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .398
The Six-Pointed and Five-Pointed Stars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .401
The Grand Inquisitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
The Bright Spot of Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432
v contents
Page
“Is it Idle to Argue Further?”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434
Fragments of Occult Truth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
Notes on some Aryan-Arhat Esoteric Tenets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475
The Thoughts of the Dead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481
Dreamland and Somnambulism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482
Are Dreams but Idle Visions? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
Spiritualism and Occult Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .490
Reincarnation in Tibet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
PREFACE
THE title A Modern Panarion has been taken from the controversial Panarion of the Church Father Epiphanius in which he attacked the various sects and heresies of the first four centuries of the Christian era. The Panarion was so called as being a “basket” of scraps and fragments. We are told that this Panarion was “a kind of medicine chest, in which he had collected means of healing against the poisonous bite of the heretical serpent.”
A Modern Panarion is of a like
nature with the intent of the Christian Father; only in the nineteenth century,
heresy has in many instances become orthodoxy, and orthodoxy heresy, and the
Panarion of H. P. Blavatsky is intended as a means of healing against the errors
of ecclesiasticism, dogma and bigotry, and the blind negation of materialism and
pseudo-science.
EDITORS.
THE H. P. B. MEMORIAL FUND
In 1891 the following resolutions were passed by all the Sections of the Theosophical Society :—
Resolved:
1. That the most fitting and permanent memorial of H. P. B.’s life and work would be the production and publication of such papers, books and translations as will tend to promote that intimate union between the life and thought of the Orient and the Occident to the bringing about of which her life was devoted.
2. That an “H. P. B. Memorial Fund” be instituted for this purpose, to which all those who feel gratitude or admiration towards H. P. B. for her work, both within and without the T. S., are earnestly invited to contribute as their means may allow.
3. That the President of the Theosophical Society, together with the General Secretaries of all Sections of the same, constitute the Committee of Management of this Fund.
4. That the Presidents of Lodges in each Section be a Committee to collect and forward to the General Secretary of their respective Sections the necessary funds for this purpose.
THE EDDY MANIFESTATIONS
—————
[ The following letter was addressed to a contemporary journal by Mine. Blavatsky, and was handed to us for publication in The Daily Graphic, as we have been taking the lead in the discussion of the curious subject of Spiritualism.—EDIT0R “DAILY GRAPHIC.”]
AWARE in the past of your love of justice and fair play, I most earnestly solicit the use of your columns to reply to an article by Dr. G. M. Beard in relation to the Eddy family in Vermont. He, in denouncing them and their spiritual manifestations in a most sweeping declaration, would aim a blow at the entire spiritual world of to-day. His letter appeared this morning (October 2 Dr. George M. Beard has for the last few weeks assumed the part of the “roaring lion” seeking for a medium “to devour.” It appears that to-day the learned gentleman is more hungry than ever. No wonder, after the failure he has experienced with Mr. Brown, the “mind-reader,” at New Haven.
I do not know Dr. Beard personally, nor do I care to know how far he is entitled to wear the laurels of his profession as an M.D., but what I do know is that he may never hope to equal, much less to surpass, such men and savants as Crookes, Wallace, or even Flammarion, the French astronomer, all of whom have devoted years to the investigation of Spiritualism. All of them came to the conclusion that, supposing even the well-known phenomenon of the materialization of spirits did not prove the identity of the persons whom they purported to represent, it was not, at all events, the work of mortal hands; still less was it a fraud.
Now to the Eddys. Dozens of visitors have remained there for weeks and even for months; not a single séance has taken place with out some of them realizing the personal presence of a friend, a relative, a mother, father, or dear departed child. But lo! here comes Dr. Beard, stops less than two days, applies his powerful electrical battery, under which the spirit does not even wink or flinch, closely examines the
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cabinet (in which he finds nothing), and then turns his back and declares most emphatically “that he wishes it to be perfectly under-stood that if his scientific name ever appears in connection with the Eddy family, it must be only to expose them as the greatest frauds who cannot do even good trickery.” Consummatum est! Spiritualism is defunct. Requiescat in Pace! Dr. Beard has killed it with one word. Scatter ashes over your venerable but silly heads, 0 Crookes, Wallace and Varley! Henceforth you must be considered as demented, psychologized lunatics, and so must it be with the many thousands of Spiritualists who have seen and talked with their friends and relatives departed, recognizing them at Moravia, at the Eddys’, and elsewhere throughout the length and breadth of this continent. But is there no escape from the horns of this dilemma? Yea verily, Dr. Beard writes thus: “When your correspondent returns to New York I will teach him on any convenient evening how to do all that the Eddys' do.” Pray why should a Daily Graphic reporter be the only one selected by G. M. Beard, M.D. for initiation into the knowledge of so clever a “trick”? In such a case why not publicly denounce this universal trickery, and so benefit the whole world? But Dr. Beard seems to be as partial in his selections as he is clever in detecting the said tricks. Didn’t the learned doctor say to Colonel Olcott while at the Eddys’ that three dollars’ worth of second-hand drapery would be enough for him to show how to materialize all the spirits that visit the Eddy homestead?
To this I reply, backed as I am by the testimony of hundreds of reliable witnesses, that all the wardrobe of Niblo’s Theatre would not suffice to attire the numbers of “spirits” that emerge night after night from an empty little closet.
Let Dr. Beard rise and explain the following fact if he can: I remained fourteen days at the Eddys’. In that short period of time I saw and recognized fully, out of 119 apparitions, seven “spirits.” I admit that I was the only one to recognize them, the rest of the audience not having been with me in my numerous travels throughout the East, but their various dresses and costumes were plainly seen and closely examined by all.
The first was a Georgian boy, dressed in the historical Caucasian attire, the picture of whom will shortly appear in The Daily Graphic. I recognized and questioned him in Georgian upon circumstances known only to myself. I was understood and answered. Requested by me in
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MANIFESTATIONS.
his mother tongue (upon the whispered suggestion of Colonel Olcott) to play the Lezguinka, a Circassian dance, he did so immediately upon the guitar.
Second—A little old man appears. He is dressed as Persian merchants generally are. His dress is perfect as a national costume. Everything is in its right place, down to the “babouches” that are off his feet, he stepping out in his stockings. He speaks his name in a loud whisper. It is “Hassan Aga,” an old man whom I and my family have known for twenty years at Tiflis. He says, half in Georgian and half in Persian, that he has got a “big secret to tell me,” and comes at three different times, vainly seeking to finish his sentence.
Third—A man of gigantic stature comes forth, dressed in the picturesque attire of the warriors of Kurdistan. He does not speak, but bows in the oriental fashion, and lifts up his spear ornamented with bright-coloured feathers, shaking it in token of welcome. I recognize him immediately as Jaffar Ali Bek, a young chief of a tribe of Kurds, who used to accompany me in my trips around Ararat in Armenia on horseback, and who on one occasion saved my life. More, he bends to the ground as though picking up a handful of mould, and scattering it around, presses his hand to his bosom, a gesture familiar only to the tribes of the Kurdistan.
Fourth—A Circassian comes out. I can imagine myself at Tiflis, so perfect is his costume of “nouker” (a man who either runs before or behind one on horseback). This one speaks more, he corrects his name, which I pronounced wrongly on recognizing him, and when I repeat it he bows, smiling, and says in the purest guttural Tartar, which sounds so familiar to my ear, “Tchoch yachtchi” (all right), and goes away.
Fifth—Au old woman appears with Russian headgear. She comes out and addresses me in Russian, calling me by an endearing term that she used in my childhood. I recognize an old servant of my family, a nurse of my sister.
Sixth—A large powerful negro next appears on the platform. His head is ornamented with a wonderful coiffure something like horns wound about with white and gold. His looks are familiar to me, but I do not at first recollect where I have seen him. Very soon he begins to make some vivacious gestures, and his mimicry helps me to recognize him at a glance. It is a conjurer from Central Africa. He grins and disappears.
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Seventh and last—A large, grey-haired gentleman comes out attired in the conventional suit of black. The Russian decoration of St. Ann hangs suspended by a large red moiré ribbon with two black stripes— a ribbon, as every Russian will know, belonging to the said decoration. This ribbon is worn around his neck. I feel faint, for I think I recognize my father. But the latter was a great deal taller. In my excitement I address him in English, and ask him: “Are you my father?” He shakes his head in the negative, and answers as plainly as any mortal man can speak, and in Russian, “No; I am your uncle.” The word “diadia” was heard and remembered by all the audience. It means “uncle.” But what of that? Dr. Beard knows it to be but a pitiful trick, and we must submit in silence. People that know me know that I am far from being credulous. Though an Occultist of many years’ standing, I am more sceptical in receiving evidence from paid mediums than many unbelievers. But when I receive such evidences as I received at the Eddys’, I feel bound on my honour, and under the penalty of confessing myself a moral coward, to defend the mediums, as well as the thousands of my brother and sister Spiritualists against the conceit and slander of one man who has nothing and no one to back him in his assertions. I now hereby finally and publicly challenge Dr. Beard to the amount of $500 to produce before a public audience and under the same conditions the manifestations herein attested, or failing this, to bear the ignominious consequences of his proposed exposé
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
I2 East Sixteenth Street, New York City,
October 27th, 1874
DR. BEARD CRITICIZED
—————
As Dr. Beard has scorned (in his scientific grandeur) to answer the challenge sent to him by your humble servant in the number of The Daily Graphic for the 13th* of October last, and has preferred instructing the public in general rather than one “credulous fool” in particular, let her come from Circassia or Africa, I fully trust you will permit me to use your paper once more in order that by pointing out some very spicy peculiarities of this amazingly scientific exposure, the public might better judge at whose door the aforesaid elegant epithet could be most appropriately laid.
For a week or so an immense excitement, a thrill of sacrilegious fear, if I may be allowed this expression, ran through the psychologized frames of the Spiritualists of New York. It was rumoured in ominous whispers that G. Beard, M.D., the Tyndall of America, was coming out with his peremptory exposure of the Eddys’ ghosts and—the Spiritualists trembled for their gods!
The dreaded day has come, the
number of The Daily Graphic for November the 9th is before us. We have read it
carefully, with respectful awe, for true science has always been an authority
for us (weak- minded fool though we may be), and so we handled the dangerous
exposure with a feeling somewhat akin to that of a fanatic Christian opening a
volume of Büchner. We perused it to the last: we turned the page over and over
again, vainly straining our eyes and brains to detect therein one word of
scientific proof or a solitary atom of over whelming evidence that would thrust
into our Spiritualistic bosom the venomous fangs of doubt. But no, not a
particle of reasonable explanation or of scientific evidence that what we have
all seen, heard and felt at the Eddys’ was but delusion. In our feminine
modesty, still allowing the said article the benefit of the doubt, we
disbelieved our
—————
* This appears to be a misprint, unless the challenge had been made on the 13th, and was Only repeated in the letter of Oct. 2 —Eds.
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own senses, and so devoted a whole day to the picking up of sundry bits of criticism from judges that we believe more competent than ourselves, and at last came collectively to the following conclusion:
The Daily Graphic has allowed Dr. Beard in its magnanimity nine columns of its precious pages to prove—what? Why, the following:
First, that he, Dr. Beard, according to his own modest assertions (see columns second and third) is more entitled to occupy the position of an actor intrusted with characters of simpletons (Molière’s “Tartuffe” might fit him perhaps as naturally) than to undertake the difficult part of a Prof. Faraday vis-à-vis the Chittenden D. D. Home.
Secondly, that although the learned doctor was “overwhelmed already with professional labours” (a nice and cheap reclame, by the way) and scientific researches, he gave the latter another direction, and so went to the Eddys. That, arrived there, he played with Horatio Eddy, for the glory of science and the benefit of humanity, the difficult character of a “dishevelled simpleton,” and was rewarded in his scientific research by finding on the said suspicious premises a professor of bumps “a poor harmless fool”! Galileo, of famous memory, when he detected the sun in its involuntary imposture chuckled certainly less over his triumph than does Dr. Beard over the discovery of this “poor fool” No. 1. Here we modestly suggest that perhaps the learned doctor had no need to go as far as Chittenden for that.
Further, the doctor, forgetting entirely the wise motto, Non bis in idem, discovers and asserts throughout the length of his article that all the past, present and future generations of pilgrims to the “Eddy homestead” are collectively fools, and that every solitary member of this numerous body of Spiritualistic pilgrims is likewise “a weak- minded, credulous fool”! Query—the proof of it, if you please, Dr. Beard? Answer—Dr. Beard has said so, and Echo responds, Fool!
Truly miraculous are thy doings, indeed, 0 Mother Nature! The cow is black and its milk is white! But then, you see, those ill-bred, ignorant Eddy brothers have allowed their credulous guests to eat up all the “trout” caught by Dr. Beard and paid for by him seventy-five cents per pound as a penalty; and that fact alone might have turned him a little—how shall we say—sour, prejudiced? No, erroneous in his statement, will answer better.
For erroneous he is, not to say more. When, assuming an air of scientific authority, he affirms that the séance-room is generally so dark
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that one cannot recognize at three feet distance his own mother, he says what is not true. When he tells us further that he saw through a hole in one of the shawls and the space between them all the manœuvres of Horatio’s arm, he risks finding himself contradicted by thousands who, weak-minded though they may be, are not blind for all that, neither are they confederates of the Eddys, but far more reliable wit nesses in their simple-minded honesty than Dr. Beard is in his would-be scientific and unscrupulous testimony. The same when he says that no one is allowed to approach the spirits nearer than twelve feet dis tance, still less to touch them, except the “two simple-minded ignorant idiots” who generally sit on both ends of the platform. To my knowledge many other persons have sat there besides those two.
Dr. Beard ought to know this better than anyone else, as he has sat there himself. A sad story is in circulation, by the way, at the Eddys’. The records of the spiritual séances at Chittenden have devoted a whole page to the account of a terrible danger that threatened for a moment to deprive America of one of her brightest scientific stars. Dr. Beard, admitting a portion of the story himself, perverts the rest of it, as he does everything else in his article. The doctor admits that he had been badly struck by the guitar, and, not being able to bear the pain, “jumped up,” and broke the circle. Now it clearly appears that the learned gentleman has neglected to add to the immense stock of his knowledge the first rudiments of “logic.” He boasts of having completely blinded Horatio and others as to the real object of his visit. What should then Horatio pummel his head for? The spirits were never known before to be as rude as that. But Dr. B. does not believe in their existence and so lays the whole thing at Horatio’s door. He forgets to state, though, that a whole shower of missiles were thrown at his head and that—”pale as a ghost,” so says the tale-telling record—the poor scientist surpassed for a moment the “fleet-footed Achilles” himself in the celerity with which he took to his heels. How strange if Horatio, not suspecting him still, left him standing at two feet distance from the shawl! How very logical!
It becomes evident that the said neglected logic was keeping company at the time with old mother Truth at the bottom of her well, neither of them being wanted by Dr. Beard. I myself have sat upon the upper step of the platform for fourteen nights by the side of Mrs. Cleveland. I got up every time “Honto” approached me to within an inch of my face in order to see her the better. I have touched her
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hands repeatedly as other spirits have been touched, and even embraced her nearly every night.
Therefore, when I read Dr. Beard’s preposterous and cool assertion that “a very low order of genius is required to obtain command of a few words in different languages and so to mutter them to credulous Spiritualists,” I feel every right in the world to say in my turn that such a scientific exposure as Dr. Beard has come out with in his article does not require any genius at all; per contra, it requires a ridiculous faith on the part of the writer in his own infallibility, as well as a positive confidence in finding in all his readers what he elegantly terms “weak- minded fools.” Every word of his statement, when it is not a most evident untruth, is a wicked and malicious insinuation built on the very equivocal authority of one witness against the evidence of thousands.
Says Dr Beard, “I have proved that the life of the Eddys is one long lie, the details need no further discussion.” The writer of the above lines forgets, by saying these imprudent words, that some people might think that “like attracts like.” He went to Chittenden with deceit in his heart and falsehood on his lips, and so judging his neighbour by the character he assumed himself, he takes everyone for a knave when he does not put him down as a fool. Declaring so positively that he has proved it, the doctor forgets one trifling circumstance, namely, that he has proved nothing whatever.
Where are his boasted proofs? When we contradict him by saying that the séance-room is far from being as dark as he pretends it to be, and that the spirits themselves have repeatedly called out through Mrs. Eaton’s voice for more light, we only say what we can prove before any jury. When Dr. Beard says that all the spirits are personated by W. Eddy, he advances what would prove to be a greater conundrum for solution than the apparition of spirits themselves. There he falls right away into the domain of Cagliostro: for if Dr. B. has seen five or six spirits in all, other persons, myself included, have seen one hundred and nineteen in less than a fortnight, nearly all of whom were differently dressed. Besides, the accusation of Dr. Beard implies the idea to the public that the artist of The Daily Graphic who made the sketches of so many of those apparitions, and who is not a “credulous Spiritualist” himself, is likewise a humbug, propagating to the world what he did not see, and so spreading at large the most preposterous and outrageous lie.
When the learned doctor will have explained to us how any man in
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his shirt-sleeves and a pair of tight pants for an attire can possibly conceal on his person (the cabinet having been previously found empty) a whole bundle of clothes, women’s robes, hats, caps, head-gears, and entire stilts of evening dress, white waistcoats and neckties included, then he will be entitled to more belief than he is at present. That would be a proof indeed, for, with all due respect to his scientific mind, Dr. Beard is not the first Œdipus that has thought of catching the Sphinx by its tail and so unriddling the mystery. We have known more than one “weak-minded fool,” ourselves included, that has lahoured under a similar delusion for more than one night, but all of us were finally obliged to repeat the words of the great Galileo, “E pur, se muove!” and give it up.
But Dr. Beard does not give it up. Preferring to keep a scornful silence as to any reasonable explanation, he hides the secret of the above mystery in the depths of his profoundly scientific mind. “His life is given to scientific researches,” you see; “his physiological knowledge and neuro-physiological learning are immense,” for he says so, and skilled as he is in combating fraud by still greater fraud (see column the eighth), spiritualistic humbug has no more mysteries for him. In five minutes the scientist had done more towards science than all the rest of the scientists put together have done in years of labour, and “would feel ashamed if he had not.” (See same column.) In the overpowering modesty of his learning he takes no credit to himself for having done so, though he has discovered the astounding, novel fact of the “cold benumbing sensation.” How Wallace, Crookes and Varley, the naturalist-anthropologist, the chemist and electrician, will blush with envy in their old country! America alone is able to produce on her fertile soil such quick and miraculous intellects. “Veni, Vidi, Vici!” was the motto of a great conqueror. Why should not Dr. Beard select for his crest the same? And then, not unlike the Alexanders and the Cæsars of antiquity (in the primitive simplicity of his manners), he abuses people so elegantly, calling them “fools” when he cannot find a better argument.
A far wiser mind than Dr. Beard (will he dispute the fact?) has suggested, centuries ago, that the tree was to be judged according to its fruits. Spiritualism, notwithstanding the desperate efforts of more scientific men than himself, has stood its ground without flinching for more than a quarter of a century. Where are the fruits of the tree of science that blossoms on the soil of Dr. Beard’s mind? If we are to
10 ————————————————————A MODERN PANARION.
judge of them by his article, then verily the said tree needs more than usual care. As for the fruits, it would appear that they are as yet in the realms of “sweet delusive hope.” But then, perhaps the doctor was afraid to crush his readers under the weight’ of his learning (true merit has been in all times modest and unassuming), and that accounts for the learned doctor withholding from us any scientific proof of the fraud that he pretends to be exposing, except the above-mentioned fact of the “cold benumbing sensation.” But how Horatio can keep his hand and arm ice cold under a warm shawl for half an hour at a time, in summer as well as in any other season, and that without having some ice concealed about his person, or how he can prevent it from thawing—all the above is a mystery that Dr. Beard doesn’t reveal for the sent. Maybe he will tell us something of it in his book that he advertises in the article. Well, we only hope that the former will be more satisfactory than the latter.
I will add but a few words before ending my debate with Dr. Beard for ever. All that he says about the lamp concealed in a bandbox, the strong confederates, etc., exists only in his imagination, for the mere sake of argument, we suppose. “False in one, false in all,” says Dr. Beard in column the sixth. These words are a just verdict on his own article.
Here I will briefly state what I reluctantly withheld up to the present moment from the knowledge of all such as Dr. Beard. The fact was too sacred in my eyes to allow it to be trifled with in newspaper gossiping. But now, in order to settle the question at once, I deem it my duty as a Spiritualist to surrender it to the opinion of the public.
On the last night that I spent with the Eddys I was presented by Georgo Dix and Mayflower with a silver decoration, the upper part of a medal with which I was but too familiar. I quote the precise words of the spirit: “We bring you this decoration, for we think you will value it more highly than anything else. You will recognize it, for it is the badge of honour that was presented to your father by his Government for the campaign of 1828, between Russia and Turkey. We got it through the influence of your uncle, who appeared to you here this evening. We brought it from your father’s grave at Stavropol. You will identify it by a certain sign known to yourself.”
These words were spoken in the presence of forty witnesses. Col. Olcott will describe the fact and give the design of the decoration.
I have the said decoration in my possession. I know it as having
11 ————————————————————DR. BEARD CRITICIZED.
belonged to my father. More, I have identified it by a portion that, through carelessness, I broke myself many years ago, and, to settle all doubt in relation to it, I possess the photograph of my father (a picture that has never been at the Eddys’, and could never possibly have been seen by any of them) on which this medal is plainly visible.
Query for Dr. Beard: How could the Eddys know that my father was buried at Stavropol; that he was ever presented with such a medal, or that he had been present and in actual service at the time of the war of 1828?
Willing as we are to give every one his due, we feel compelled to say on behalf of Dr. Beard that he has not boasted of more than he can do, in advising the Eddys' to take a few private lessons of him in the trickery of mediumship. The learned doctor must be expert in such trickeries. We are likewise ready to admit that in saying as he did that “his article would only confirm the more the Spiritualists in their belief” (and he ought to have added, “convince no one else”), Dr. Beard has proved himself to be a greater “prophetic medium” than any other in this country!
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
23, Irving Place, New York City,
November 10th, 1874
THE LACK OF UNITY AMONG
SPIRITUALISTS
—————
[ From a letter received from Mme. Blavatsky last week we make the following extracts, want of space alone preventing us from publishing it entire. It was written in her usual lively and entertaining style, and her opinions expressed are worthy of careful study, many of them being fully consistent with the true state of affairs.—EDIT0R “SPIRITUAL SCIENTIST” (Dec. 3rd, 1874).]
As it is, I have only done my duty; first, towards Spiritualism, that I have defended as well as I could from the attacks of imposture under its too transparent mask of science; then towards two helpless slandered “mediums”—the last word becoming fast in our days the synonym of “martyr”; secondly, I have contributed my mite towards opening the eyes of an indifferent public to the real, intrinsic value of such a man as Dr. Beard. But I am obliged to confess that I really do not believe that I have done any good—at least, any practical good—to Spiritualism itself; and I never hope to perform such a feat as that were I to keep on for an eternity bombarding all the newspapers of America with my challenges and refutations of the lies told by the so-called “scientific exposers.”
It is with a profound sadness in my heart that I acknowledge this fact, for I begin to think there is no help for it. For over fifteen years have I fought my battle for the blessed truth; I have travelled and preached it—though I never was born for a lecturer—from the snow- covered tops of the Caucasian Mountains, as well as from the sandy valleys of the Nile. I have proved the truth of it practically and by persuasion. For the sake of Spiritualism I have left my home, an easy life amongst a civilized society, and have become a wanderer upon the face of this earth. I had already seen my hopes realized, beyond the most sanguine expectations, when, in my restless desire for more knowledge, my unlucky star brought me to America.
Knowing this country to be the cradle of modern Spiritualism, I
13 ———————————————THE LACK OF UNITY AMONG
SPIRITUALISTS.
came over here from France with feelings not unlike those of a Mohammedan approaching the birthplace of his prophet. I had for gotten that “no prophet is without honour save in his own country.” In the less than fourteen months that I am here, sad experience has but too well sustain the never-dying evidence of this immortal truth.
What little I have done towards defending phenomena I am ever ready to do over and over again, as long as I have a breath of life left in me. But what good will it ever do? We have a popular and wise Russian saying that “one Cossack on the battle-field is no warrior.” Such is my case, together with that of many other poor, struggling wretches, everyone of whom, like a solitary scout, sent far ahead in advance of the army, has to fight his own battle, and defend the post entrusted to him, unaided by anyone but himself. There is no union between Spiritualists, no entante cordiale, as the French say. Judge Edmonds said, some years ago, that they numbered in their ranks over eleven millions in this country alone; and I believe it to be true; in which case, it is but to be the more deplored. When one man—as Dr. Beard did and will do yet—dares to defy such a formidable body as that, there must be some cause for it. His insults, gross and vulgar as they are, are too fearless to leave one particle of doubt that if he does it, it is but because he knows too well that he can do so with impunity and perfect ease. Year after year the American Spiritualists have allowed themselves to be ridiculed and slighted by everyone who had a mind to do so, protesting so feebly as to give their opponents the most erroneous idea of their weakness. Am I wrong, then, in saying that our Spiritualists are more to be blamed than Dr. Beard himself in all this ridiculous polemic? Moral cowardice breeds more contempt than the “familiarity” of the old motto. How can we expect such a scientific sleight-of-hand as he is to respect a body that does not respect itself?
My humble opinion is, that the majority of our Spiritualists are too much afraid for their “respectability” when called upon to confess and acknowledge their “belief.” Will you agree with me, if I say that the dread of the social Areopagus is so deeply rooted in the hearts of your American people, that to endeavour to tear it out of them would be undertaking to shake the whole system of society from top to bottom? “Respectability” and “fashion” have brought more than one utter materialist to select (for mere show) the Episcopalian and other wealthy churches. But Spiritualism is not “fashionable,” as yet, and that’s
14 ————————————————————A MODERN PANARION.
where the trouble is. Notwithstanding its immense and daily increasing numbers, it has not won, till now, the right of citizenship. Its chief leaders are not clothed in gold and purple and fine raiment; for, not unlike Christianity in the beginning of its era, Spiritualism numbers in its ranks more of the humble and afflicted ones, than of the powerful and wealthy of this earth. Spiritualists belonging to the latter class will seldom dare to step out in the arena of publicity and boldly proclaim their belief in the face of the whole world; that hybrid monster, called “public opinion,” is too much for them; and what does a Dr. Beard care for the opinion of the poor and the humble ones? He knows but too well that his insulting terms of “fools” and “weak minded idiots,” as his accusations of credulousness, will never be applied to themselves by any of the proud castes of modern “Pharisees”; Spiritualists as they know themselves to be, and have perhaps been for years, if they deign to notice the insult at all, it will be but to answer him as the cowardly apostle did before them, “Man, I tell thee, I know him not!”
St. Peter was the only one of the remaining eleven that denied his Christ thrice before the Pharisees; that is just the reason why, of all the apostles, he is the most revered by the Catholics, and has been selected to rule over the most wealthy as the most proud, greedy and hypocritical of all the churches in Christendom. And so, half Christians and half believers in the new dispensation, the majority of those eleven millions of Spiritualists stand with one foot on the threshold of Spiritualism, pressing firmly with the other one the steps leading to the altars of their “fashionable” places of worship, ever ready to leap over under the protection of the latter in hours of danger. They know that under the cover of such immense “respectability” they are perfectly safe. Who would presume or dare to accuse of “credulous stupidity’’ a member belonging to certain ‘‘fashionable congregations’’? Under the powerful and holy shade of any of those “pillars of truth” every heinous crime is liable to become immediately transformed into but a slight and petty deviation from strict Christian virtue. Jupiter, for all his numberless “Don Juan” like frolics, was not the less on that account considered by his worshippers as the “Father of Gods”!
THE HOLMES CONTROVERSY
A FEW weeks ago, in a letter, extracts from which have appeared in The Spiritual Scientist of December 3rd, I alluded to the deplorable lack of accord between American Spiritualists, and the consequences of the same. At that time I had just fought out my useless battle with a foe who, though beneath my own personal notice, had insulted all the Spiritualists of this country, as a body, in a caricature of a so-called scientific exposé. In dealing with him I dealt with but one of the numerous “bravos” enlisted in the army of the bitter opponents of belief; and my task was, comparatively speaking, an easy one, if we take it for granted that falsehood can hardly withstand truth, as the latter will ever speak for itself. Since that day the scales have turned; prompted now, as then, by the same love of justice and fair play, I feel compelled to throw down my glove once more in our defence, seeing that so few of the adherents to the cause are bold enough to accept that duty, and so many of them show the white feather of pusillanimity.
I indicated in my letter that such a state of things, such a complete lack of harmony, and such cowardice, I may add, among their ranks, subjected the Spiritualists and the cause to constant attacks from a compact, aggressive public opinion, based upon ignorance and wicked prejudice, intolerant, remorseless and thoroughly dishonest in the employment of its methods. As a vast army, amply equipped, may be cut to pieces by an inferior force well trained and handled, so Spiritualism, numbering its hosts by millions, and able to vanquish every reactionary theology by a little well-directed effort, is constantly harassed, weakened, impeded, by the convergent attacks of pulpit and press, and by the treachery and cowardice of its trusted leaders. It is one of these professed leaders that I propose to question to-day, as closely as my rights, not only as a widely known Kabalist but also as a resident of the United States, will allow me. When I see the numbers of believers in this country, the broad basis of their belief, the im-
16 ————————————————————A MODERN PANARION.
pregnability of their position, and the talent that is embraced within their ranks, I am disgusted at the spectacle that they manifest at this very moment, after the Katie King—how shall we say—fraud? By no means, since the last word of this sensational comedy is far from being spoken.
There is not a country on the face of our planet, with a jury attached to its courts of justice, but gives the benefit of the doubt to every criminal brought within the law, and affords him a chance to be heard and tell his story.
Is such the case between the pretended “spirit performer,” the alleged bogus Katie King, and the Holmes mediums? I answer most decidedly no, and mean to prove it, if no one else does.
I deny the right of any man or woman to wrench from our hands all possible means of finding out the truth. I deny the right of any editor of a daily newspaper to accuse and publish accusations, refusing at the same time to hear one word of justification from the defendants, and so, instead of helping people to clear up the matter, leaving them more than ever to grope their way in the dark.
The biography of “Katie King” has come out at last; a sworn certificate, if you please, endorsed (under oath?) by Dr. Child, who throughout the whole of this “burlesque” epilogue has ever appeared in it, like some inevitable deus-ex-machinâ. The whole of this made- up elegy (by whom? evidently not by Mrs. White) is redolent with the perfume of erring innocence, of Magdalene-like tales of woe and sorrow, tardy repentance and the like, giving us the abnormal idea of a pickpocket in the act of robbing our soul of its most precious, thrilling sensations. The carefully-prepared explanations on some points that appear now and then as so many stumbling-blocks in the way of a seemingly fair exposé do not preclude, nevertheless, through the whole of it, the possibility of doubt; for many awkward semblances of truth, partly taken from the confessions of that fallen angel, Mrs. White, and partly—most of them we should say—copied from the private note-book of her “amanuensis,” give you a fair idea of the veracity of this sworn certificate. For instance, according to her own statement and the evidence furnished by the habitue’s of the Holmeses, Mrs. White having never been present at any of the dark circles (her alleged acting as Katie King excluding all possibility, on her part, of such a public exhibition of flesh and bones), how comes she to know so well, in every particular, about the tricks of the mediums, the pro-
17 ———————————————————THE HOLMES CONTROVERSY.
gramme of their performances, etc.? Then, again, Mrs. White who remembers so well—by rote we may say—every word exchanged between Katie King and Mr. Owen, the spirit and Dr. Child, has evidently forgotten all that was ever said by her in her bogus personation to Dr. Felger; she does not even remember a very important secret communicated by her to the latter gentleman! What an extraordinary combination of, memory and absence of mind at the same time. May not a certain memorandum-book, with its carefully-noted contents, account for it, perhaps? The document is signed, under oath, with the name of a non-existing spirit, Katie King. . . . Very clever!
All protestations of innocence or explanations sent in by Mr. or Mrs. Holmes, written or verbal, are peremptorily refused publication by the press. No respectable paper dares takes upon itself the responsibility of such an unpopular cause.
The public feel triumphant; the clergy, forgetting in the excitement of their victory the Brooklyn scandal, rub their hands and chuckle; a certain exposer of materialized spirits and mind-reading, like some monstrous anti-spiritual mitrailleuse shoots forth a volley of missiles, and sends a condoling letter to Mr. Owen; Spiritualists, crestfallen, ridiculed and defeated, feel crushed for ever under the pretended exposure and that overwhelming, pseudonymous evidence. . . . The day of Waterloo has come for us, and sweeping away the last remnants of the defeated army, it remains for us to ring our own death-knell.
Spirits, beware! henceforth, if you lack prudence, your materialized forms will have to stop at the cabinet doors, and in a perfect tremble melt away from sight, singing in chorus Edgar Poe’s “Never more.” One would really suppose that the whole belief of the Spiritualists hung at the girdles of the Holmeses, and that in case they should be unmasked as tricksters, we might as well vote our phenomena an old woman’s delusion.
Is the scraping off of a barnacle the destruction of a ship? But, moreover, we are not sufficiently furnished with any plausible proofs at all.
Colonel Olcott is here and has begun investigations. His first tests with Mrs. Holmes alone, for Mr. Holmes is lying sick at Vineland, have proved satisfactory enough, in his eyes, to induce Mr. Owen to return to the spot of his first love, namely, the Holmeses’ cabinet. He began by tying Mrs. Holmes up in a bag, the string drawn tightly round her neck, knotted and sealed in the presence of Mr. Owen, Col.
18 ————————————————————A MODERN PANARION.
Olcott and a third gentleman. After that the medium was placed in the empty cabinet, which was rolled away into the middle of the room, and it was made a perfect impossibility for her to use her hands. The door being closed, hands appeared in the aperture, then the outlines of a face came, which gradually formed into the classical head of John King, turban, beard and all. He kindly allowed the investigators to stroke his beard, touch his warm face, and patted their hands with his. After the séance was over, Mrs. Holmes, with many tears of gratitude in the presence of the three gentlemen, assured Mr. Owen most solemnly that she had spoken many a time to Dr. Child about “Katie” leaving her presents in the house and dropping them about the place, and that she—Mrs. Holmes—wanted Mr. Owen to know it; but that the doctor had given her most peremptory orders to the contrary, forbidding her to let the former know it, his precise words being, “Don’t do it, it’s useless; he must not know it I leave the question of Mrs. Holmes’ veracity as to this fact for Dr. Child to settle with her.
On the other hand, we have tile woman, Eliza White, exposer and accuser of the Holmeses, who remains up to the present day a riddle and an Egyptian mystery to every man and woman of this city, except to the clever and equally invisible party—a sort of protecting deity— who took the team in hand, and drove the whole concern of “Katie’s” materialization to destruction, in what he considered such a first-rate way. She is not to be met, or seen, or interviewed, or even spoken to by anyone, least of all by the ex-admirers of “Katie King” herself, so anxious to get a peep at the modest, blushing beauty who deemed her self worthy of personating the fair spirit. Maybe it’s rather dangerous to allow them the chance of comparing for themselves the features of both? But the most perplexing fact of this most perplexing imbroglio is that Mr. R. D. Owen, by his Own confession to me, has never, not even on the day of the exposure, seen Mrs. White, or talked to her, or had other wise the least chance to scan her features close enough for him to identify her. He caught a glimpse of her general outline but once, viz., at the mock séance of Dec. 5th referred to in her biography, when she appeared to half a dozen of witnesses (invited to testify and identify the fraud) emerging de nova from the cabinet, with her face closely covered with a double veil (!) after which the sweet vision vanished and appeared no more. Mr. Owen adds that he is not prepared to swear to the identity of Mrs. White and Katie King.
May I he allowed to enquire as to the necessity of such a profound
19 ———————————————————THE HOLMES CONTROVERSY.
mystery, after the promise of a public exposure of all the fraud? It seems to me that the said exposure would have been far more satisfactory if conducted otherwise. Why not give the fairest chance to R. D. Owen, the party who has suffered the most on account of this disgusting swindle—if swindle there is—to compare Mrs. White with his Katie? May I suggest again that it is perhaps because the spirit’s features are but too well impressed on his memory, poor, noble, confiding gentleman. Gauze dresses and moonshine, coronets and stars can possibly be counterfeited in a half-darkened room, while features, answering line for line to the “spirit Katie’s” face, are not so easily made up; the latter require very clever preparations. A lie may be easy enough for a smooth tongue, but no pug nose can lie itself into a classical one.
A very honourable gentleman of my acquaintance, a fervent admirer of the “spirit Katie’s” beauty, who has seen and addressed her at two feet distance about fifty times, tells me that on a certain evening, when Dr. Child begged the spirit to let him see her tongue (did the honour-able doctor want to compare it with Mrs. White’s tongue—the lady having been his patient?), she did so, and upon her opening her mouth, the gentleman in question assures me that he plainly saw, what in his admiring phraseology he terms “the most beautiful set of teeth—two rows of pearls.” He remarked most particularly those teeth. Now there are some wicked, slandering gossips, who happen to have cultivated most intimately Mrs. White’s acquaintance in the happy days of her innocence, before her fall and subsequent exposé and they tell us very bluntly (we beg the penitent angel’s pardon, we repeat but a hear say) that this lady can hardly number among her other natural charms the rare beauty of pearly teeth, or a perfect, most beautiful formed hand and arm. Why not show her teeth at once to the said admirer, and so shame the slanderers? Why shun “Katie’s” best friends? If we were so anxious as she seems to be to prove “who is who,” we would surely submit with pleasure to the operation of showing our teeth, yea, even in a court of justice. The above fact, trifling as it may seem at first sight, would be considered as a very important one by any intelligent juryman in a question of personal identification.
Mr. Owen's statement to us, corroborated by “Katie King” herself in her biography, a sworn document, remember, is in the following words:
“She consented to have an interview with some gentlemen who had seen her personating the spirit, on condition that she would be allowed to
20 ————————————————————A MODERN PANARION.
keep a veil over her face all the time she was conversing with them.” (Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 11th, 4 col., “K. K. Biography.”)
Now pray why should these “too credulous weak-minded gentle men,” as the immortal Dr. Beard would say, he subjected again to such an extra strain on their blind faith? We should say that that was just the proper time to come out and prove to them what was the nature of the mental aberration they were labouring under for so many months. Well, if they do swallow this new veiled proof they are welcome to it.
Vulgus vult decipi decipiatur! But I expect something more substantial before submitting in guilty silence to be laughed at. As it is, the case stands thus:
According to the same biography (same column) the mock séance was prepared and carried out to everyone’s heart’s content, through the endeavours of an amateur detective, who, by the way, if any one wants to know, is a Mr. W. 0. Leslie. a contractor or agent for the Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York Railroad, residing in this city. If the press and several of the most celebrated victims of the fraud are under bond of secrecy with him, I am. not, and mean to say what I know. And so the said séance took place on Dec. 5th last, which fact appearing in sworn evidence, implies that Mr. Leslie had wrested from Mrs. White the confession of her guilt at least several days previous to that date, though the precise day of the ‘‘amateur’s’’ triumph is very cleverly withheld in the sworn certificate. Now comes a new conundrum.
On the evenings of Dec. 2nd and 3rd at two séances held at the Holmeses’, I, myself, in the presence of Robert Dale Owen and Dr. Child (chief manager of those performances, from whom I got on the same morning an admission card), together with twenty more witnesses, saw the spirit of Katie step out of the cabinet twice, in full form and beauty, and I can swear in any court of justice that she did not bear the least resemblance to Mrs. White’s portrait.
As I am unwilling to base my argument upon any other testimony than my own, I will not dwell upon the alleged apparition of Katie King at the Holmeses’ on Dec. 5th to Mr. Roberts and fifteen others, among whom was Mr. W. H. Clarke, a reporter for The Daily Graphic, for I happened to be out of town, though, if this fact is demonstrated, it will go far against Mrs. White, for on that precise evening, and at the same hour, she was exhibiting herself as the bogus Katie at the mock séance. Something still more worthy of consideration is found in the
21———————————————————THE HOLMES CONTROVERSY.
most positive assertion of a gentleman, a Mr. Wescott, who on that evening of the 5th on his way home from the real séance, met in the car Mr. Owen, Dr. Child and his wife, all three returning from the mock séance. Now it so happened that this gentleman mentioned to them about having just seen the spirit Katie come out of the cabinet, adding ‘‘he thought she never looked better” ; upon hearing which Mr. Robert Dale Owen stared at him in amazement, and all the three looked greatly perplexed.
And so I have but insisted on the apparition of the spirit at the mediums’ house on the evenings Dec. 2nd and 3rd, when I witnessed the phenomenon, together with Robert Dale Owen and other parties.
It would be worse than useless to offer or accept the poor excuse that the confession of the woman White, her exposure of the fraud, the delivery to Mr. Leslie of all her dresses and presents received by her in the name of Katie King, the disclosure of the sad news by this devoted gentleman to Mr. Owen, and the preparation of the mock séance cabinet and other important matters, had all of them taken place on the 4th the more so, as we are furnished with most positive proofs that Dr. Child at least, if not Mr. Owen. knew all about Mr. Leslie’s success with Mrs. White several days beforehand. Knowing then of the fraud, how could Mr. Leslie allow it to be still carried on, as the fact of Katie’s apparition at the Holmeses’ on Dec. 2nd and 3rd prove to have been the case? Any gentleman, even with a very moderate degree of honour about him, would never allow the public to be fooled and defrauded any longer, unless he had time firm resolution of catching the bogus spirit on the spot and proving the imposition. But no such thing occurred. Quite the contrary; for Dr. Child, who had constituted himself from the first not only chief superintendent of the séances, cabinet and materialization business, but also cashier and ticket-holder (paying the mediums at first ten dollars per séance, as he did, and subsequently fifteen dollars, and pocketing the rest of the proceeds), on that same evening of the 3rd took the admission money from every visitor as quietly as he ever did. I will add, furthermore, that I, in propriâ personâ, handed him on that very night a five—dollar bill, and that he (Dr. Child) kept the whole of it, remarking that the balance could he made good to us by future séance.
Will Dr. Child presume to say that getting ready, as he then was, in company with Mr. Leslie, to produce the bogus Katie King on the 5th of December, he knew nothing, as yet, of the fraud on the 3rd?
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Further; in the same biography (chap. viii, column the 1st), it is stated that, immediately upon Mrs. White’s return from Blissfield, Mich., she called on Dr. Child, and offered to expose the whole humbug she had been engaged in, but that he would not listen to her. Upon that occasion she was not veiled, as indeed there was no necessity for her to be, since by Dr. Child’s own admission she had been a patient of his, and under his medical treatment. In a letter from Holmes to Dr. Child, dated Blissfield, Aug. 28th, 1874, the former writes:
Mrs. White says you and the friends were very rude, wanted to look into all our boxes and trunks and break open locks. What were you looking for, or expecting to find?
All these several circumstances show in the clearest possible manner that Dr. Child and Mrs. White were on terms much more intimate then than that of casual acquaintance, and it is the height of absurdity to assert that if Mrs. White and Katie King were identical, the fraud was not perfectly well known to the “Father Confessor” (see narrative of John and Katie King, p. 45). But a side light is thrown upon this comedy from the pretended biography of John King and his daughter Katie, written at their dictation in his own office by Dr. Child himself. This book was given out to the world as an authentic revelation from these two spirits. It tells us that they stepped in and stepped out of his office, day after day, as any mortal being might, and after holding brief conversations, followed by long narratives, they fully endorsed the genuineness of their own apparition in the Holmeses’ cabinet. Moreover, the spirits appearing at the public séances corroborated the statements which they made to their amanuensis in his office; the two dovetailing together and making a consistent story. Now, if the Holmeses’ Kings were Mrs. White, who were the spirits visiting the doctor’s office? and if the spirits visiting him were genuine, who were those that appeared at the public séances? In which particular has the “Father Confessor” defrauded the public? In selling a book containing false biographies or exposing bogus spirits at the Holmeses’? Which or both? Let the doctor choose.
If his conscience is so tender as to force him into print with his certificate and affidavits why does it not sink deep enough to reach his pocket, and compel him to refund to us the money obtained by him under false pretences? According to his own confession, the Holmeses received from him, up to the time they left town, about $1,2OO, for four months of daily séances. That he admitted every night as many visitors
23 ———————————————————THE HOLMES CONTROVERSY.
as he could possibly find room for—sometimes as many as thirty-five— is a fact that will be corroborated by every person who has seen the phenomena more than once. Furthermore, some six or seven reliable witnesses have told us that the modest fee of $1 was only for the habitués, too curious or over-anxious visitors having to pay sometimes as much as $5, and in one instance $10. This last fact I give under all reserve, not having had to pay so much as that myself.
Now let an impartial investigator of this Philadelphia imbroglio take a pencil and cast up the profit left after paying the mediums, in this nightly spirit speculation lasting many months. The result would be to show that the business of a spirit “Father Confessor” is, on the whole, a very lucrative one.
Ladies and gentlemen of the spiritual belief, methinks we are all of us between the horns of a very wonderful dilemma. If you happen to find your position comfortable, I do not, and so will try to extricate myself.
Let it be perfectly understood, though, that I do not intend in the least to undertake at present the defence of the Holmeses. They may be the greatest frauds for what I know or care. My only purpose is to know for a certainty to whom I am indebted for my share of ridicule— small as it may be, luckily for me. If we Spiritualists are to be laughed and scoffed at and ridiculed and sneered at, we ought to know at least the reason why. Either there was a fraud or there was none. If the fraud is a sad reality, and Dr. Child by some mysterious combination of his personal cruel fate has fallen the first victim to it, after having proved himself so anxious for the sake of his honour and character to stop at once the further progress of such a deceit on a public that had hitherto looked on him alone as the party responsible for the perfect integrity and genuineness of a phenomenon so fully endorsed by him in all particulars, why does not the doctor come out the first and help us to the clue of all this mystery? Well aware of the fact that the swindled and defrauded parties can at any day assert their rights to the restitution of moneys laid out by them solely on the ground of their entire faith in him they had trusted, why does he not sue the Holmeses and so prove his own innocence? He cannot but admit that in the eyes of some initiated parties, his cause looks far more ugly as it now stands than the accusation under which the Holmeses vainly struggle. Or, if there was no fraud, or if it is not fully proved, as it cannot well be on the shallow testimony of a nameless woman signing documents
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with pseudonyms, why then all this comedy on the part of the principal partner in the “Katie materialization” business? Was not Dr. Child the institutor, the promulgator, and we may say the creator of what proves to have been but a bogus phenomenon, after all? Was not lie the advertising agent of this incarnated humbug—the Barnum of this spiritual show? And now that he has helped to fool not only Spiritualists but the world at large, whether as a confederate himself or one of the weak-minded fools—no matter, so long as it is demonstrated that it was he that helped us to this scrape—he imagines that by helping to accuse the mediums, and expose the fraud, by fortifying with his endorsement all manner of bogus affidavits and illegal certificates from non-existing parties, he hopes to find himself henceforth perfectly clear of responsibility to the persons he has dragged after him into this infamous swamp!
We must demand a legal
investigation. We have the right to insist upon it, for we Spiritualists have
bought this right at a dear price:
with the life-long reputation
of Mr. Owen as an able and reliable writer and trustworthy witness of the
phenomena, who may henceforth be regarded as a doubted and ever-ridiculed
visionary by sceptical wise-acres. We have bought this right with the prospect
that all of us, whom Dr. Child has unwittingly or otherwise (time will prove it)
fooled into belief in his Katie King, will become for a time the butts for end-less raillery, satires and jokes from the press and ignorant masses. We regret
to feel obliged to contradict on this point such an authority in all matters as
The Daily Graphic, but if orthodox laymen rather decline to see this fraud
thoroughly investigated in a court of justice for fear of the Holmeses becoming
entitled to the crown of martyrs, we have no such fear as that, and repeat with
Mr. Hudson Tuttle that “better perish the cause with the impostors than live
such a life of eternal ostracism, with no chance for justice or redress.”
Why in the name of all that is wonderful should Dr. Child have all the laurels of this unfought battle, in which the attacked army seems for ever doomed to be defeated without so much as a struggle? Why should he have all the material benefit of this materialized humbug, and R. D. Owen, an honest Spiritualist, whose name is universally respected, have all the kicks and thumps of the sceptical press? Is this fair and just? How long shall we Spiritualists be turned over like so many scapegoats to the unbelievers by cheating mediums and speculating prophets? Like some modern shepherd Paris, Mr. Owen fell a
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victim to the snares of this pernicious, newly materialized Helen; and on him falls heaviest the present reaction that threatens to produce a new Trojan war. But the Homer of the Philadelphia Iliad, the one who has appeared in the past as the elegiac poet and biographer of that same Helen, and who appears in the present kindling up the spark of doubt against the Holmeses, till, if not speedily quenched, it might become a roaring ocean of flames—he that plays at this present hour the unparalleled part of a chief justice presiding at his own trial and deciding in his own case-—Dr. Child, we say, turning back on the spirit daughter of his own creation, and backing the mortal, illegitimate off spring furnished by somebody, is left unmolested! Only fancy, while R. D. Owen is fairly crushed under the ridicule of the exposure, Dr. Child, who has endorsed false spirits, now turns state’s evidence and endorses as fervently spirit certificates, swearing to the same in a court of justice
If ever I may hope to get a chance of having my advice accepted by some one anxious to clear up all this sickening story, I would insist that the whole matter be forced into a real court of justice and unriddled before a jury. If Dr. Child is, after all, an honest man whose trusting nature was imposed upon, lie must be the first to offer us all the chances that he in his power of getting at the bottom of all these endless “whys” and “bows.” If he does not, in such a case we will try for ourselves to solve the following mysteries:
1st, Judge Allen, of Vineland, now in Philadelphia, testifies to the fact that when the cabinet, made up under the direct supervision and instructions of Dr. Child, was brought home to the Holmeses, the doctor worked at it himself, unaided, one whole day, and with his tools, Judge Allen being at the time at the mediums’, whom he was visiting. If there was a trap-door or “two cut boards” connected with it, who did the work? Who can doubt that such clever machinery, fitted in such a way as to baffle frequent and close examinations on the part of the sceptics, requires an experienced mechanic of more than ordinary ability? Further, unless well paid, he could hardly be bound to secrecy. Who paid him? Is it Holmes out of his ten-dollar nightly fee? We ought to ascertain it.
2nd, If it is true, as two persons are ready to swear, that the party, calling herself Eliza White, alias “Frank,” alias Katie King, and so forth, is no widow at all, having a well materialized husband, who is living, and who keeps a drinking saloon in a Connecticut town—then
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in such case the fair widow has perjured herself and Dr. Child has endorsed the perjury. We regret that he should endorse the statements of the former as rashly as he accepted the fact of her materialization.
3rd, Affidavits and witnesses (five in all) are ready to prove that on a certain night, when Mrs. White was visibly in her living body, refreshing her penitent stomach in company with impenitent associates in a lager beer saloon, having no claims to patrician “patronage,” Katie King, in her spirit form, was as visibly seen at the door of her cabinet.
4th On one occasion, when Dr. Child (in consequence of some prophetic vision, maybe) invited Mrs. White to his own house, where he locked her up with the inmates, who entertained her the whole of the evening, for the sole purpose of convincing (he always seems anxious to convince somebody of something) some doubting sceptics of the reality of the spirit-form, the latter appeared in the séance-room and talked with R. D. Owen in the presence of all the company. The Spiritualists were jubilant that night, and the doctor the most triumphant of them all. Many are the witnesses ready to testify to the fact, but Dr. Child, when questioned, seems to have entirely forgotten this important occurrence.
5th Who is the party whom she claims to have engaged to personate General Rawlings? Let him come out and swear to it, so that we will all see his great resemblance to the defunct warrior.
6th, Let her name the friends from whom she borrowed the costumes to personate “Sauntee” and “Richard.” They must prove it under oath. Let them produce the dresses. Can she tell us where she got the shining robes of the second and third spheres?
7th Only some portions of Holmes’ letters to “Frank” are published in the biography: some of them for the purpose of proving their co- partnership in the fraud at Blissfield. Can she name the house and parties with whom she lodged and boarded at Blissfield, Michigan?
When all the above questions are answered and demonstrated to our satisfaction, then, and only then, shall we believe that the Holmeses are the only guilty parties to a fraud, which, for its consummate rascality and brazenness, is unprecedented in the annals of Spiritualism.
I have read some of Mr. Holmes’ letters, whether original or forged, no matter, and blessed as I am with a good memory, I well remember certain sentences that have been, very luckily for the poetic creature,
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suppressed by the blushing editor as being too vile for publication. One of the most modest of the paragraphs runs thus:
Now, my advice to you, Frank, don’t crook your elbow too often; no use doubling up and squaring your fists again.
Oh, Katie King!
Remember, the above is addressed to the woman who pretends to have personated the spirit of whom R. D. Owen wrote thus:
I particularly noticed this evening the ease and harmony of her motions. In Naples, (luring five years, I frequented a circle famed for courtly demeanour; but never in the best-bred lady of rank accosting her visitors, have I seen Katie out-rivalled.
And further:
A well-known artist of Philadelphia, after examining Katie, said to me that he had seldom seen features exhibiting more classic beauty. “Her movements and, bearing,” he added, “are the very ideal of grace.”
Compare for one moment this admiring description with the quotation from Holmes’ letter. Fancy an ideal of classic beauty and grace crooking her elbow in a lager beer saloon, and—judge for yourselves !
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
1111, Girard Street, Philadelphia.
THE HOLMES CONTROVERSY
(Continued.)
IN the last Religio-Philosophical Journal (for February 2 in the Philadelphia department, edited by Dr. Child, under the most poetical heading of “After the Storm comes the Sunshine,” we read the following:
I have been waiting patiently for the excitement in reference to the Holmes fraud to subside a little. I will now make some further statements and answer some questions.
Further:
The stories of my acquaintance with Mrs. White are all fabrications.
Further still:
I shall not notice the various reports put forth about my pecuniary relations farther than to say there is a balance due to me for money loaned to the Holmeses.
I claim the right to answer the above three quotations, the more so that the second one consigns me most unceremoniously to the ranks of the liars. Now if there is, in my humble judgment, anything more contemptible than a cheat, it is certainly a liar.
The rest of this letter, editorial, or whatever it may be, is unanswerable, for reasons that will be easily understood by whoever reads it. ‘When petulant Mr. Pancks (in Littie Dorrit) spanked the benevolent Christopher Casby, this venerable patriarch only mildly lifted up his blue eyes heavenward, and smiled more benignly than ever. Dr. Child, tossed about and as badly spanked by public opinion, smiles as sweetly as Mr. Casby, talks of “sunshine,” and quiets his urgent accusers by assuring them that ‘‘it is all fabrications.”
I don’t know whence Dr. Child takes his “sunshine,” unless he draws it from the very bottom of his innocent heart.
For my part, since I came to Philadelphia, I have seen little but slush and dirt; slush in the streets, and dirt in this exasperating Katie King mystery.
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I would strongly advise Dr. Child not to accuse me of “fabrication,” whatever else he may be inclined to ornament me with. What I say I can prove, and am ever willing to do so at any day. If he is innocent of all participation in this criminal fraud, let him “rise and explain.”
If he succeeds in clearing his record, I will be the first to rejoice, and promise to offer him publicly my most sincere apology for the “erroneous suspicions” I labour under respecting his part in the affair; but he must first prove that he is thoroughly innocent. Hard words prove nothing, and he cannot hope to achieve such a victory by simply accusing people of “fabrications.” If he does not abstain from applying epithets unsupported by substantial proofs, he risks, as in the game of shuttlecock and battledore, the chance of receiving the missile back, and maybe that it will hurt him worse than he expects.
In the article in question he says:
The stories of my acquaintance with Mrs. White are all fabrications. I did let her in two or three times, but the entry and hall were so dark that it was impossible to recognize her or any one. I have seen her several times, and knew that she looked more like Katie King than Mr. [?] or Mrs. Holmes.
Mirabile dietu! This beats our learned friend, Dr. Beard. The latter denies, point-blank, not only “materialization,” which is not yet actually proved to the world, but also every spiritual phenomenon. But Dr. Child denies being acquainted with a woman whom he confesses him self to have seen “several times,” received in his office, where she was seen repeatedly by others, and yet at the same time admits that he “knew she looked like Katie King,” etc. By the way, we have all laboured under the impression that Dr. Child admitted in The Inquirer that he saw Mrs. White for the first time and recognized her as Katie King only on that morning when she made her affidavit at the office of the justice of the peace. A “fabrication” most likely. In the R.-P. Journal for October 2 1874, Dr. Child wrote thus:
Your report does not for a moment shake my confidence in our Katie King, as she comes to me every day and talks to me. On several occasions Katie had come to me and requested Mr. Owen and myself to go there [ to the Holmeses’] and she would come and repeat what she had told me above.
Did Dr. Child ascertain where Mrs. White was at the time of the spirit’s visits to him?
As to Mrs. White, I know her well. I have on many occasions let her into the house. I saw her at the time the manifestations were going on in Blissfield. She has since gone to Massachusetts.
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And still the doctor assures us he was not acquainted with Mrs. White. What signification does he give to the word “acquaintance” in such a case? Did he not go, in the absence of the Holmeses, to their house, and talk with her and even quarrel with the woman? Another fabricated story, no doubt. I defy Dr. Child to print again, if he dare, such a word as fabrication in relation to myself, after he has read a certain statement that I reserve for the last.
In all this pitiful, humbugging romance of an “exposure” by a too material she-spirit, there has not been given us a single reasonable explanation of even so much as one solitary fact. It began with a bogus biography, and threatens to end in a bogus fight, since every single duel requires at least two participants, and Dr. Child prefers extracting sunshine from the cucumbers of his soul and letting the storm subside, to fighting like a man for his own fair name. He says that “he shall not notice” what people say about his little speculative transactions with the Holmeses. He assures us that they owe him money. Very likely, but it does not alter the alleged fact of his having paid $10 for every séance and pocketing the balance. Dare he say that he did not do it? The Holmeses' say otherwise, and the statements in writing of various witnesses corroborate them.
The Holmeses may be scamps in the eyes of certain persons, and the only ones in the eyes of the more prejudiced; but as long as their statements have not been proven false, their word is as good as the word of Dr. Child; aye, in a court of justice even, the “Mediums Holmes” would stand just on the same level as any spiritual prophet or clairvoyant who might have been visited by the same identical spirits that visited the former. So long as Dr. Child does not legally prove them to be cheats and himself innocent, why should not they be as well entitled to belief as himself?
From the first hour of the Katie King mystery, if people have accused them, no one so far as I know—not even Dr. Child himself—has proved, or even undertaken to prove, the innocence of their ex-cashier and recorder. The fact that every word of the ex-leader and president of the Philadelphian Spiritualists would be published by every spiritual paper (and here we must confess to our wonder that he does not hasten much to avail himself of this opportunity) while any statement coming from the Holmeses' would be pretty sure of rejection, would not necessarily imply the fact that they alone are guilty; it would only go towards showing that, notwithstanding the divine truth of our faith and the
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teachings of our invisible guardians, some Spiritualists have not profited by them to learn impartiality and justice.
These “mediums” are persecuted; so far it is but justice, since they themselves admitted their guilt about the photography fraud, and unless it can be shown that they were thereunto controlled by lying spirits their own mouths condemn them; but what is less just, is that they are slandered and abused on all points and made to bear alone all the weight of a crime, where confederacy peeps out from every page of the story. No one seems willing to befriend them—these two helpless uninfluential creatures, who, if they sinned at all, perhaps sinned through weakness and ignorance—to take their case in hand, and by doing justice to them, do justice at the same time to the cause of truth. If their guilt should be as evident as the daylight at noon, is it not ridiculous that their partner, Dr. Child, should show surprise at being so much as suspected! History records but one person—the legitimate spouse of the great Cæsar—whose name has to remain enforced by law as above suspicion. Methinks that if Dr. Child possesses some natural claims to his self-assumed title of Katie King’s “Father Confessor,” he can have none whatever to share the infallibility of Madame Cæsar's virtue. Being pretty sure as to this myself, and feeling, moreover, somewhat anxious to swell the list of pertinent questions, which are called by our disingenuous friend “fabrications,” with at least one fact, I will now proceed to furnish your readers with the following:
“Katie’s” picture has been, let us say, proved a fraud, an imposition on the credulous world, and is Mrs. White’s portrait. This counterfeit has been proved by the beauty of the “crooking elbow,” in her bogus autobiography (the proof sheets of which Dr. Child was seen correcting), by the written confession of the Holmeses', and, lastly, by Dr. Child himself.
Out of the several bogus portraits of the supposed spirit, the most spurious one has been declared—mostly on the testimony endorsed by Dr. Child and “over his signature”—to be the one where the pernicious and false Katie King is standing behind the medium.
The operation of this delicate piece of imposture proved so difficult as to oblige the Holmeses' to take into the secret of the conspiracy the photographer.
Now Dr. Child denies having had anything whatever to do with the sittings for those pictures. He denies it most emphatically, and goes so far as to say (we have many witnesses and proofs of this) that he
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