People From The Other World

 Inside of Cabinet. 

 

The people who emerged from the cabinet in the Eddy family’s circle-room seemed natural in some respects, as chronicled by Henry S. Olcott in his nonfiction case study that presented “a detailed description of the strange things seen, heard, and felt by the author at the Eddy Homestead, in the township of Chittenden, Vermont” during several months in 1874.  The beings seen at the ‘materialization seances’ of William Eddy were distinctly ‘people’ and not any manner of vague or translucent  ‘phantoms.’  Olcott commented that he had witnessed “too many proofs of the materiality of the visible spirit-forms to fancy them imponderable and unsubstantial.” 

 The Circle-Room.

The book People From The Other World (1875) evolved from a series of articles written by Henry S. Olcott (1832-1907) for The Daily Graphic newspaper.  To chronicle his investigation, Olcott was accompanied during his visit by an artist assigned to make sketches of the proceedings.  Olcott’s first writing and reporting had been in the field of agriculture prior to the Civil War.  He cited in the book “portents and marvels” from recent years and from earlier epochs, observing: “. . . 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.”  Beyond the Fox family having experienced the ‘Rochester Knockings,’ other families that soon became known for experiencing the unexplained phenomena that became associated with Spiritualism were the Davenports of Buffalo, New York and the Koons family of Athens County, Ohio.

Olcott mentioned that he had originally approached his investigation from his “first position of ascribing all these Eddy phenomena to trickery” but the obvious reality of the phenomena became readily apparent.  An account of his first visit of five days at the Eddy Homestead was published in the New York Sun and aroused great interest.  His second visit to Chittenden commenced on September 17, 1874.

People From The Other World includes biographical information about the Eddys.  Olcott reported that in March 1872 a significant event in the lives of the family had occurred.  “William had cut his foot very badly with an axe, and was confined to his bed in an adjoining room.  Suddenly, 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.”  During this period, other materializations of people followed and William was instructed that to develop his mediumship “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 . . ."

The Eddys’ circle room opened to the public on January 1, 1874 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.”  Olcott had a questioning orientation regarding the visitors from the other world.  William conducted nightly materialization seances except on Sundays.  The Eddy parents were deceased.  Zephaniah Eddy was described as “a bigoted religionist, and very little educated.”  His wife Julia had inherited from her mother the gift of 'foreseeing' or 'clairvoyance.'  Olcott reported about their children:

Mysterious sounds were heard about their cradles, strange voices called through the rooms they were in, they 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.

 

The Mother.

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 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 children traveled throughout the United States on exhibition and also were brought to London.  The family maintained diaries of their experiences although William, without schooling, was “almost illiterate.”  Olcott described the children’s assorted ordeals while touring, some similar to those faced by the Davenport brothers, whose public exhibitions presented some similar manifestations to the Eddy ‘light-circles.’  There were places where the Eddy children were “stoned, hooted at, and followed to their hotels by angry crowds.” Olcott reported:

. . . they travelled for the profit of others; by which I meant to say that when William, Horatio 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 average of under ten dollars a month apiece.

Olcott quoted from one passage of Horatio’s diary from 1867: “This day we suffered very much by severe tying and abuse from those who professed to be Spiritualists . . . We thanked the Divine Power for preserving us from the gross treatment of our enemies."  Below are some of the depicted abuses.  Olcott reported that in the lower left predicament "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."

Sufferings of Mediums.

Among the many uncanny occurrences reported by the family during the boys’ childhood was hearing and seeing “an old-fashioned, open carriage, drawn by a pair of white horses with plumes on their heads, turn rapidly into the yard and stop.”  As all eyes were fixed upon the lady on the back seat, she and the carriage began to fade.  A week before Mrs. Eddy’s earthly life ended after a lingering illness, her own dead mother was reported to have materialized holding a basket of white roses: “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.”  Roses have been a symbol for love and regeneration throughout the ages.  Personally, when I (Mark Russell Bell) am asked about experiencing God’s Love, I need only say that from the age of five and for more than twenty-five years I lived in Pasadena, California!

Olcott mentioned that William invariably entered a deep trance when “materializations” occurred.  Other trances were observed when Horatio and the others were “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.”  Olcott further reported: “Upon recovering from this latter condition, the medium seems to remember nothing that has befallen him . . .”

The Sleeping Medium.

               

Olcott began attending circle seances on the rainy evening of his return to Chittenden when a company of twenty-five people assembled.  Shortly after seven p.m., William entered the cabinet and there was a period of vocal and instrumental music.  Then the voice of elderly ‘Mrs. Eaton’ was heard and next there emerged from the curtains of the cabinet the Indian woman 'Honto,' about whom Olcott wrote: “I have seen her about thirty times . . . She changes her dress frequently . . . A remarkable fact is, that at times her hair is very long . . ."   On this evening, she suddenly produced “a long piece of gauzy fabric, apparently from the air itself . . . 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.”  After Honto allowed a seance attendee to feel the beating of her heart, there was seen a succession of five other Native Americans and then various relatives of several seance attendees.

Mrs. Eaton, “whose shrill voice we had so often heard from the cabinet up-stairs” was seen on one occasion during a sitting in the reception room at Olcott's suggestion, leading him to proclaim, “. . . it was now unquestionable that the voice up-stairs was hers and not the medium’s.”

Other phenomena witnessed by Olcott at the Eddy homestead included “writing of names of deceased persons upon cards” when only the hands were seen; “the flashing of phosphorescent lights”; “the touching and patting of our persons by supposed spirit-hands”; and “the improvisation of rhymes by a voice, upon a subject named by any person present.”

During Madame Blavatsky’s visit to the Eddy Homestead, she sometimes played the parlor-organ during seances and this brought her only several feet away from the people who emerged from the cabinet.

 A Musical Spirit.

In the book’s Chapter XII subtitled “Is It An Occult Force?,” Olcott acknowledged his introspection brought about by his investigation at the Eddy Homestead: “Result: A possibility that, by some occult control over now unknown forces of nature, beings, other than those in the body can manifest their presence to sight, touch, and hearing.  If beings, what beings? . . . 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.’”

Below is a detail of a “Fac-Simile of Spirit-Writing” that appeared in The Daily Graphic.

Olcott wrote about a memorable speech heard on the evening of October 2, 1874 —

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 the 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 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 Anna 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. 

  Mrs. Eddy Addressing The Audience. 
 

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 large frame, and had the ample figure that is represented in the portrait published with a former chapter.  She wore a white waist and dark skirt.  Her hair was in ringlets, as I discovered 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 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 disseminate it.  I thank you for your kindness to my children, 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 thoughtful consideration of psychologists.

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