1875
.
H.P.B’s
Role at the Eddy’s
The
.
[H.P.B.’S
ROLE AT THE EDDYS’ HOMESTEAD]
[In H.P.B.’s Scrapbook, Vol. I, pp.
11-12, a cutting is pasted from The Spiritualist of
“The Countess’ presence at several of the Eddy séances led to most
surprising manifestations, including the appearance of several spirits of
persons known to her in foreign countries.”
H.P.B. marked this sentence with blue pencil and added at the side in
pen and ink:]
Yes; for I have called them out MYSELF.
H.P.B.
[The last sentence of the article: “These American facts, coupled with
our own, should have an important bearing in correcting the errors of both
science and theology”—w as continued by H.P.B. who added in pen and ink:]
—and—Spiritualism
please add. Belief in the agency of “Spirits” or disembodied souls in these
phenomena is as foolish & irrational as belief in the agency of the Holy
Ghost in the fabrication of Jesus if the latter ever lived.
H. P. Blavatsky.
—————
[The following two items. entitled “Heroic Women” and “A Card from the
Countess Blavatsky,” appear as cuttings from a newspaper in H.P.B.’s Scrapbook,
Vol. I, p. 17. The name and date of the newspaper do not appear in print,
but H.P.B. wrote in ink above the first cutting: “From the N. Y. Mercury,
It is probable that these two items appeared one week apart from each
other, but the actual dates have remained somewhat
54 BLAVATSKY: COLLECTED WRITINGS
uncertain, as the files of both the
Words that are underlined have been underscored by H.P.B. herself in her
Scrapbook. Her various comments at the side of the cuttings appear
as footnotes.]
HEROIC WOMEN
A PETTICOATED STAFF OFFICER OF GARIBALDI—STRANGE AND STRIKING CAREER—A FORMER COMPANION WHOSE HISTORY READS LIKE ROMANCE.
It is not often that two heroines appear at the same time before the
public, yet Helen P. Blavatsky and Clementine Gerebko have entered the legal
arena in order to have a slight business misunderstanding settled by Judge Pratt
of the Supreme Court,
Helena P. Blavatsky, who is about forty years [of] age,* at the
age of seventeen married a Russian nobleman then in his seventy-third year. For
many years† they resided together at
Her life has been one of many vicissitudes, and the area of her
experiences is bounded only by the world. It is said that she visited this
country with a party of tourists. On her return to
––––––––––
* a fib.
† a lie—was with him but for three weeks.
‡ legal, because he died.
†† whom? when!! how!?
––––––––––
A CARD FROM
THE COUNTESS BLAVATSKY 55
she
escaped hasty death only by her coolness and matchless skill.*
Altogether
Madame Blavatsky is
AN ASTONISHING WOMAN
––––––––––
* Every word is a lie. Never was on “Garibaldi’s staff.”
Went with friends to Mentana to help shooting the Papists and got shot myself.
Nobody’s business—least of any a d — d reporter’s.
––––––––––
—————
A CARD FROM THE COUNTESS† BLAVATSKY‡
To the Editors of the N. Y. Sunday
Mercury.
In
last Sunday’s issue I read an article headed “Heroic Women,” and find that I
figure therein as the primary heroine. My name is H. P. Blavatsky. I decline
the honor of a comparison with “the latter heroine” C. Gerebko, and proceed to
explain some of the statements of the said article. If I married a Russian
“nobleman” I never resided with him anywhere; for three weeks after the
sacrifice I left him for reasons plausible enough in my eyes, as in those of
the “puritan” world. I do not know if he died at the advanced age of
ninety-seven as for the last twelve years†† this noble patriarch has entirely
vanished out of my sight and memory. But I beg leave to say that I never was
married again, for this one solitary case of “conjugal love” has proved too
much for me. I did not get acquainted with Mrs. Gerebko at the residence of the
Russian consul; I never had the honor of visiting this gentleman, but upon
business in his office. I know Mr. G.’s family in
––––––––––
† [“the Countess” scored out in ink by H.P.B.]
‡ Answered a long letter but they inserted but this paragraph and added LIES.—H.P.B.
†† [“for the last twelve years” scored out and substituted for it at the
side: since then.]
––––––––––
56 BLAVATSKY: COLLECTED WRITINGS
daily for
about two months. She married Gerebko at Kutais. When they arrived in this
country, a year ago, they did not purchase a beautiful residence, but simply
bought a farm of six acres of land at Northport for the modest sum of $1,000.
My unlucky star brought me in contact with her about the latter part of June
last. She represented to me her farm as giving a revenue of nearly $2,000
yearly, and induced me to go into partnership with her on the following terms:
I had to give her $1,000 and pay half of the expenses that might occur, for
which sum I bought of her the right on the half of the yearly profit of
everything. We made the contract for three years, and it was recorded. I paid
the money, and went to live with them. The first month I spent nearly $500 for
buildings and otherwise; at the expiration of which month she prayed to be
released of the contract, as she was ready to pay me my money back. I
consented, and gave her permission to sell at auction all we had except the
farm land and buildings, and we both came to
H. P. BLAVATSKY,
—————
THE
[Banner of Light.
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
THE
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 but with one of the numerous “bravos” enlisted in the army of the
bitter opponents of our 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 our 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 our 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 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 today, as closely as my
rights, not only as a widely known Spiritualist, but 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 impregnability 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
58 BLAVATSKY: COLLECTED WRITINGS
jury
attached to its courts of justice, but gives the benefit of the doubt to every
criminal brought within the law, and 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, equally endorsed (under oath?) by Dr. Child,* who throughout the whole
of this “burlesque” epilogue has ever appeared in it, like some inevitable deus
ex machina. 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, and 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 notebook of her
“amanuensis,” give you a fair idea of the veracity of this sworn certificate.
For instance, according
––––––––––
* [In her Scrapbook, Vol. I, p. 19, where the cutting of
this article is pasted, H.P.B. added the following remark in pen and ink:
Child
was a confederate. He took money . . . . .
1mes’ séance. He is a ra . . .l.
The
last word may be rascal.—Compiler.]
––––––––––
THE
to her
own statement and the evidence furnished by the habitués 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 programme 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. Fellger;* 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 take upon itself the responsibility of such an
unpopular cause.
The
public feels 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
––––––––––
* [A well-known and highly respected
––––––––––
60 BLAVATSKY: COLLECTED WRITINGS
will have
to stop at the cabinet doors, and in perfect tremor melt away from sight,
singing in chorus Poe’s Nevermore!
One
would really suppose that the whole belief of us Spiritualists hung at the
girdles of the Holmeses, and that in case they should be unmasked as
tricksters, we might as well vote our immortality 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
On
the other hand, we have the woman, Eliza White, exposer and accuser of the
Holmeses, who remains up to the present day a riddle and an Egyptian mystery to
every
THE
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, and at 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 herself 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
otherwise 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 the 5th of December, referred to in her
biography, when she appeared to half a dozen witnesses (invited to testify and
identify the fraud) emerging de novo 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 be allowed to inquire as to the necessity of such a profound 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
62 BLAVATSKY: COLLECTED WRITINGS
preparations
A lie may be easy enough for a smooth tongue, but no pug nose can
lie itself into a classical one.
A
very honorable 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 honourable 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 hearsay), that
this lady can hardly number among her other natural charms, the rare beauty of pearly
teeth, or a perfect, most beautifully formed hand and arm.
Why not show her teeth at once to the said admirer, and so shame the
slanders? 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 is corroborated by “Katie King” herself in her
biography, a sworn document, remember, 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
––––––––––
* [H.P.B. uses on many occasions the word “remarked” when she actually
means “noticed.” It is an unconscious translation of the French word
“remarquer” which means “to notice.”—Compiler.]
––––––––––
THE
to
keep a veil over her face all the time she was conversing with them.”*
Now
pray why should these “too credulous, weak-minded gentlemen,” as the immortal
Dr. Beard would say, be 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 the
amateur detective, who by the way, if any one wants to know, is a Mr. W. O.
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 the 5th of December last, which fact appearing in a 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 evening of the 2nd and 3rd of December, 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.
––––––––––
*
––––––––––
64 BLAVATSKY: COLLECTED WRITINGS
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 the 5th
of December, 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 most positive assertion of a
gentleman, a Mr. Westcott, 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 here but insist on the apparition of the spirit at the medium’s house on
the evenings [of] the 2nd and 3rd of December, 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 the 2nd and 3rd of December proves it 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
THE EDDY
Here H.P.B. and Col. H.S.
Olcott met each other,
(From Col. H. S. Olcott’s People
from the Other World, Hartford, Conn., 1875.)
GENERAL FRANCIS J. LIPPITT
1812-1902
(From his Reminiscences,
Bio-Bibliographical Index for biographical data.)
THE
defrauded
any longer, unless he had the 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 propria persona, 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 be made good to us by future séances.
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?
Further;
in the same biography (Chapter 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,
“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
66 BLAVATSKY: COLLECTED WRITINGS
sidelight
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 apparitions in the Holmes’ 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 Holmes’ 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 pretenses? According
to his own confession, the Holmeses received from him, up to the time they left
town, about $1,200, for four months of daily séances. That he
admitted every night as many visitors 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
THE
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 defense 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 at, and scoffed, 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 case 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
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
68 BLAVATSKY: COLLECTED WRITINGS
but a bogus
phenomenon, after all? Was not he 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, as 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 lifelong
reputation of Mr. Owen as an able and reliable writer and trustworthy witness
of the phenomena, who may henceforth become a doubted and ever-ridiculed
visionary by skeptical wiseacres. We have bought this right with the prospect
that all of us, whom Dr. Child has unwillingly or otherwise (time will prove
it) fooled into belief in his Katie King, will become for a time the butts for
endless 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 forever 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
skeptical press?
THE
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 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
offspring 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,
he must be the first to offer us all the chances that lay in his power of
getting at the bottom of all these endless “whys” and “hows.” “ If he does not,
in such a case, we will try for ourselves to solve the following mysteries:
First. 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
own tools, Judge Allen being at the time at the medium’s, whom he was visiting.
If there was a trapdoor or “two cut boards” connected with it, who did the
work? Who can doubt that such a
70 BLAVATSKY: COLLECTED WRITINGS
clever
machinery, filed in a way and so 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.