Even before the Civil War began about two million people in America had already joined the spiritualist movement. It had been growing for more than a decade, since the “spirit rappings” of the Fox sisters in 1848. When the fighting finally ended in 1865 even more were in mourning and ready to become believers.
America was bitter and divided. Lincoln was assassinated, his successor was impeached. Then Ulysses Grant and more corruption as reconstruction came to a painful, racist end. Native Americans were meanwhile pushed further from their homelands.
It was a time of uncertainty and change, of discoveries, inventions, extreme wealth, grinding poverty, and growing corruption. The beginning of a Gilded Age. Millions of people were alienated, mourning, seeking solace and asking questions about the meaning of it all.
By 1870 estimates of spiritualists ran as high as eleven million, almost a third of the US population, many of them desperate to know what happened after death. Was it the end? Or was there another unseen world? Could ghosts be real? Could departed relatives and loved ones return and communicate? In parlors and farmhouses they attended seances and consulted mediums to find out.
Many mediums were unscrupulous charlatans who took advantage of grieving friends and relatives. But a few were something else, mediums, occultists and mystics who offered very different answers. And one stood out from the rest, Helena Blavatsky, a spiritual leader who would bring the West long-lost wisdom from the East and a radical new world view.
I.
“There are ‘natural born magicians,’ mystics and occultists by birth, and by right of direct inheritance from a series of incarnations and aeons of suffering and failures.”
— Helena Blavatsky
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| Illustration by Alfred Kappes |
Belief in ghosts and the survival of some immaterial essence beyond the span of human life dates back thousands of years. Ancient Egyptians visited the family plots of departed relations to provide food and clothing for the journey beyond, and enlightenment-era scientists conducted ghoulish experiments to determine the precise location of the soul. But the 19th Century ushered in something new: an era of spiritualism and an epoch of psychic discovery.
Most religions tell us that the soul goes somewhere after death — traveling to heaven, hell or a pleasant afterlife resort; reincarnating into a new body; or remaining in the ground until the Second Coming. At the start of the 20th century, Duncan Macdougall, a respected surgeon, thought he had determined the precise weight of the soul by using an ornate Fairbanks scale to track weight loss as people died. Some people will try anything.
Unexplained then, much debated, and disputed to this day are the mysterious feats of a medium who lived most of his 99 years in a remote Vermont community. William Eddy was born in Weston in 1833 and, at age 13, moved with his family to Chittenden, a township at the western edge of the Green Mountains in Rutland County inhabited by less than 800 people.
It was a strange time. Just as men and women were enduring the ennui of an oppressive materialistic world, with its rapid industrialization, growing economic inequality and widespread political corruption, an explosive era of spiritualism was also beginning, Interest in spirit phenomena had been building since 1848, when reports circulated that two teenage sisters in upstate New York could stimulate “spirit rappings.” In 1854, Achsa Sprague of Plymouth Notch, Vermont, became a famous trance medium lecturer after a sudden recovery from a disease that left her bedridden and crippled. She attributed her miraculous recovery to the intervention of spirits.
By the early 1870s, Chittenden had become a popular pilgrimage site for those interested in contacting deceased relatives and friends in the Eddy family’s “circle room,” a second floor séance hall in their farmhouse.
House of Spirits
In 1980, when I wrote about these events for the Vermont Vanguard Press, the township of Chittenden was celebrating its bicentennial. Getting its name from the first Vermont governor, Thomas Chittenden, it was also the first place chartered by the General Assembly in 1780, just a few years after Vermont became an independent republic.
Among the town’s first settlers was Nathaniel Ladd, who started his farm in the southern end of town, an area then known as New Boston. Ladd was the first town clerk, father of Anson Ladd — the first person born in the area, and keeper of a tavern in what was known locally as Ladd Hollow. Eventually, Ladd’s property was divided up as the town grew. In 1846, the tavern became home for a new family in town, the Eddys.
If you visit Chittenden today and drive south from the village toward East Pittsford, you can still see what’s left of the Eddy farm. The main house still stands, although it was turned 90 degrees on its foundation in about 1905. You can even walk to the outdoor locations, Honto’s Cave and Santum’s Grave, where moonlit seances were held in the 1870s and afterward. But by 1980, only a few remnants of the Eddy era remained. Mabel Potter, who moved into town in 1924, told me she remembered discarding Eddy possessions, including a box of letters.
The family was rarely far from poverty. On their 100-acre spread they kept a few sheep, cows, horses, hogs, and dogs. The total value of their stock was $300 (less than $7000 today), just about the same amount they owed to the town in 1870.
When Zephaniah Eddy, a narrow-minded religious bigot according to reports, passed away in 1860 his wife Julia Ann and the children inherited his modest estate. About 13 years later, when Julia Ann died, the property was divided among the five remaining unmarried children. But the Eddy parents left their heirs more than land and debt. Julia Ann was reputed to be psychic, able to foretell the future and, according to her children, communicate with the dead.
“Denizens of the mysterious world” had visited her from childhood, they claimed. She talked aloud with phantom friends, who warned her of calamities and foretold joys, often without her inviting the news. Julia Ann’s mother had the same ability, she claimed, and one great-great grandmother had been tried as a witch in Salem. Sentenced to death, she was rescued by friends and fled back to Scotland.
Zephaniah Eddy apparently didn’t know this part of his wife’s family history, and she never told him. In fact, she effectively hid her psychic abilities for years, in fear of his condemnation. But the birth of her first son ended that period of superficial calm. Although William resembled his father in some ways, his birth also sparked a renewal of Julia’s clairvoyant abilities. More seriously, her powers had apparently been inherited.
At first Zeph ignored Julia’s predictions and the voices she heard. But the phenomena became more intense with each child. Mysterious sounds near their cradles. Strange voices filling their rooms. After Julia tucked them in at night, they allegedly levitated above their beds.
When he founded out, Zeph turned to prayer, then coercion. Friends began to visit the Eddy home for prayer sessions — among them Harvey Pratt, Rufus Sprague, Sam Parker, Sam Simmons, Charlie Powers and Anson Ladd, child of Chittenden’s once-major landowner. But even group prayer failed to dispatch the spirits.
Things ultimately turned violent. One evening, when young William fell into a trance, Zeph ordered Anson to pour scalding water over him. When that failed to awaken him, they placed a blazing ember on his forehead. William remained entranced, but their handiwork left a scar.
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| Eddy Farmhouse, 2022. Photo by Greg Guma |
Life at school wasn’t much better. Attendance by Eddy children was often accompanied by spirit rapping on desks, which sometimes led to their expulsion.
And cruelty wasn’t Zeph’s last response. He eventually recognized that the strange occurrences at his house did at least have commercial potential. In America and across Europe, a spiritual craze was spreading. Both children and adults were said to be “flying,” producing voices, and moving objects. Although no showman, Zeph managed to find one, and hired out four of his kids for ten dollars a month per child. They traveled widely for about 11 years, demonstrating their strange abilities several nights a week, for audiences across the country and Europe ranging from amused to skeptical and downright hostile. According to news reports, the repertoire included rappings, moving objects, speaking in tongues, healing, levitation, writing by disembodied hands, and materialized phantom forms.
Life on the road was rarely pleasant. Although public interest was high, many people were hostile to what they saw. Remnants of the old belief in witches still prompted violent responses. Skeptics often concocted plans to test the reality of demonstrations, many of them involving pain and discomfort. They burned mediums with sealing wax, pinched them with handcuffs, and bound them tightly with ropes that permanently damaged their wrists.
The touring faded away as the children became adults and returned home. Their father was dead, but his departure didn’t affect the phenomena. At first they viewed their abilities as a disadvantage. They had become local outcasts and the subject of newspaper ridicule. But attitudes changed one night in March, 1872. William, who had cut his foot with an axe that day, was confined to bed. The rest of the family was in the adjoining living room.
Suddenly, Julia Ann’s deceased mother appeared at the threshold between the two rooms and offered advice on how to treat William’s wound. Later, another spirit appeared, this one with a message. William will be the greatest medium of the age, it announced. But to do that, he must enter a closet alone, right now. What followed when he did so was a spirit parade — Santum and Electra, two Native Americans, followed by members of their family. The impact was enormous. They immediately decided to spread the word, open the farm to visitors, and bring their manifestations to the public in their own way. Anyway, that was the official version.
William was certainly the most gifted medium in the family. In fact, it is possible that some things attributed to other members of the family were actually produced by him. William’s younger brother Horatio was a magician, and perhaps even a contortionist. But his phenomena during the Eddy heyday were sometimes suspect.
Mary Eddy, who traveled with her brothers in the 1850s and 60s as part of their performance troupe, exhibited faith and ambition but few paranormal gifts. In later years, as an independent spiritualist, she was more than once accused of fakery. Despite such theatricality, however, many manifestations at the Eddy farm remain unexplained to this day.
II.
“The People of Rutland and Chittenden have brains and capacity enough to see the patent fact that these Eddy manifestations are the vilest deception upon whoever they can get to pay 50 cents for being duped.” — Rutland Herald, June 29, 1874
Skeptics and Investigators
The Eddys were never very popular in their own community, and often targeted with scathing attacks by the local press, especially the Rutland Herald. The newspaper continued to denounce the family even after two New York dailies sent correspondents to the farm and published extensive reports that supported the authenticity of the phenomena.
Even decades later, said Mabel Potter, “the people here were scared to death of them. They thought they were witches, I guess.”
When I asked the 80-year-old whether some townsfolk assumed the Eddys were just doing tricks, she replied, “Yes, that was it. But I don’t know. I think a lot of it was genuine, because they’d been all over that house to find out about cupboards or closets that they could use to be doing something tricky.”
A few reports were sympathetic. For example, a visitor from Brooklyn once described what he had seen in a letter to the editor of the Daily Graphic, a newspaper that took a special interest in the case. He was “totally unable to fathom the mysterious presentations, except through the agency of departed beings. Believing thus, I am sure that there is more of life than the present. Disbelieving, I seek in vain for any proof whatever of immortality. Years gone by, while trying to believe in the vague theories of Bibleism and pronouncing Spiritualism a humbug, I experienced within my own organism, while entirely alone, many of those wonderful manifestations of an unseen power. I was not frightened, for I believe that God ordered them for my good.”
Attacks continued for years, even finding their way into subsequent histories of Rutland County. In the 1880s, local gazetteers reported that “their spiritual trickery has long since been exposed.” Yet no one actually provided details of the alleged exposures. No matter how many people visited Chittenden and signed affidavits about their experiences and seeing “spirits,” critics maintained that the only plausible explanation was delusion, combined with an elaborate hoax.
But simplistic answers were not enough for Henry Steel Olcott, a retired colonel who had shifted his investigative focus from corruption in naval yards during the Civil War to the systematic study of mediumistic phenomena. He made two visits to Chittenden in 1874, the second lasting more than two months, and published his findings regularly in the New York Graphic.
What did he see? Attending seances in the large, second floor Circle Room, he reported witnessing the nightly materializations of “spirit forms” of all shapes and sizes — huge Native Americans, spouses and children, businessmen in expensive suits, even the departed Julia Ann Eddy — as well as hearing music played by disembodied hands. Olcott also obtained copies of what he called spirit writing.
Once in a while he would become suspicious. Some “spirit” voices could have been produced by one of the Eddys speaking in a falsetto, he thought. But after weeks of seances and tests, including measuring and weighing the manifested forms, Olcott was basically convinced that the crowds who came to the farm six nights a week were witnessing something other than simple fraud.
What neither Olcott, or even the Eddy family’s harshest critics, could explain at the time was how so many different spirits could appear from inside the tiny closet, called a cabinet, where William Eddy sat. Was he conscious, hypnotized, or in a trance? The cabinet, less than three feet wide and seven feet deep, with no secret compartments above or below and no way in except a single door facing the audience, could by no means hold ten people, or even the costumes for one person in disguise.
On his first night in Chittenden Olcott entered the dark cabinet within a minute of the last spirit’s exit and found only William, deep in some sort of trance.
Some spirits were regular visitors, especially several of the Native Americans and a young girl named Mayflower. They spoke occasionally, but what they shared was usually of marginal significance. Departed relatives would “appear” for visitors, often leading to tearful reunions. After Olcott’s arrival some spirits gave speeches, apparently directed at the investigator.
He kept a daily log of his observations. On September 18, for example, ten spirits showed themselves. At one point a young woman appeared holding a baby. A member of the audience, squinting in the darkness, asked, “Is it for me? Is that my baby, my Charles?” The spirit nodded and held the child forward. The mother broke into tears and could say no more.
The next day Olcott took measurements of various spirits on pieces of white muslin tacked to the wall. Their heights varied from two feet to more than six. On September 20, a Sunday, there was no circle, but an angry spirit visited William while Henry Carpenter, visiting from Malone, looked on. The spirit apparently put William into a trance and scolded him for not holding a seance that night.
“I’ll learn you not to keep me around here all day and not let me come,” warned a disembodied voice. The punishment, it turned out, was a half-shaved mustache, which William discovered on his face the next morning.
On September 21, the Native American spirit called Honto wanted to smoke. Olcott filled his own pipe and passed it to her. On the 22nd, he saw 17 spirits. This time they were all caucasian — two babies, three small children, five woman and seven men. Ed Pritchard shook hands with two dead nephews, and Mrs. Eaton told Olcott that William was being trained for a new phase of mediumship.
Horatio held what he called “dark circles,” which were often musical. At these seances invisible performers played solos, duets, trios and concerts in total darkness. The instruments ranged from the harmonica to violin, guitar, flute and piccolo. These were unique performances: the instruments would float through the air across the room, making sounds without any visible assistance.
An observer, Max Lensberg, recorded his own account of October 13, one of the musical evenings. “The concerted pieces were an imitation of a storm at sea,” he wrote, “by the violin, with the accompaniment of the mouth harmonica, triangle, guitar, and several bells. In the storm, whistling of the wind was made apparently by bowing on the guitar with one hand, and at the same time by sliding the other up and down the fingerboard…. Throughout the whole entertainment, the medium sat in a chair in front of the spectators, with his wrists tied together and to the back of the chair.
“A light was struck instantly after some of the most remarkable performances, and he was found in the same manner as at the first. The first row of spectators kept hands joined from first to last, there was but one member of his family present beside himself, who sat next but one to me.
“The above is as careful and minute an account of the musical part of last night’s dark circle as I can give,m and I am ready at any time to substantiate its truth by my oath in a court of justice, if called upon.”
By October, Olcott concluded that the dead were, in fact, returning via William Eddy. Another New York daily, The Sun, had also sent a correspondent to Vermont and corroborated much of his account. Interest in spiritualism meanwhile spread to other parts of Vermont. In nearby Whittingham, the windows of a local doctor were being “mysteriously covered with etchings of strange variety, in which believers see the portraits of dead friends,” the Burlington Free Press reported on October 1, 1874.
A few weeks later, according to the Rutland Herald, large stones began to fall unexplainably on farmer Peese’s house in Pownal. The farmer and his wife tried to keep it a secret for weeks, even after locals gathered to witness the sight daily. The stones struck the house “with such velocity so as to tear nearly through the shingles or clapboards.”
No one seemed aware that these events were occuring at around the same time. But in addition to Olcott’s interpretation of the Eddy materializations, which supported the contention of spiritualists that mediums could assist spirits of the dead to reconstruct themselves, other “experts” were starting to line up on both sides of the controversy.
The Battery Test
Dr. George Miller Beard graduated from Yale College, studied at the New York College for Physicians and Surgeons, and, after serving in the Civil War, established a New York City practice, specializing in nervous diseases. He was one of the first to experiment with electricity as a stimulant, and used “central galvanization” to treat skin diseases. In 1874, Beard initiated a study of “animal magnetism” and spiritualism, convinced that such phenomena were tricks or delusions.
The 35-year-old doctor arrived in Chittenden October 12, and through what he later called “deception” (he purposely looked disheveled and acted gullible) gained admittance to the Circle Room with his electric device. His object was to observe the seances and apply a strong electric current to one of the manifestations.
According to Olcott, Beard told him that the experiment could be of great scientific importance, since “no human being could take the shock without a violent muscular contraction.”
The Eddy’s were evidently suspicious enough not to allow Beard to conduct the experiment personally. Instead, he and Olcott trained one of the more trusted seance-goers, Ed Pritchard. After two electrodes had been grasped by a female spirit named Honto, Pritchard pulled out the battery rod. The spirit held on for several minutes but nothing happened.
For Olcott this was more proof. For Beard it was certainly perplexing. But he discounted it in an interview with The Sun’s reporter. “It was of no service,” he complained, “I could not see how it was applied. Powerful current when applied in one way may be very painful. Applied in another way it may not be felt.”
As for the rest of the phenomena, he argued that the mediums were just disguising themselves, a feat accomplished through use of their “flexible and limber” bodies. They could get away with all this because most visitors were “weak-brained, simple-souled, amiable and sincere spiritualists, riff-raff of modern society.”
Both Olcott and The Rutland Herald were incensed. The colonel noted in an angry letter that Beard hadn’t bothered to explain how the allegedly uneducated Eddy’s could speak several languages. Nor could Beard argue that people were sneaking in and out of the cabinet, or even find one local resident to speak authoritatively against the mediums.
The newspaper also became alienated, even though some there had assumed that Beard would help to prove fraud. After all, the doctor said things like this: “In this land of marble and mountains the natives are drunk with excess of beauty and live in a moral state somewhat analogous to chronic alcoholism.”
The Herald was still determined to denounce the Eddys. But Beard would not be their champion. On Nov. 18, the editor concluded, “We characterize him as a humbug and a conceited ignoramus.”
Olcott took to calling him the “electric eel.”
III.
The Astral Solution
If George Beard was an archetypal quack, Helena Blavatsky was surely another archetype — mystic pioneer. In her first 43 years she had been around the world, often on her own, and had studied the ancient spiritual traditions of Egypt, India and Tibet. She was a big, broad-shouldered woman with high cheek-bones and a flat nose. She described her own looks as “Kalmuko-Buddhistic-Tartic.”
After serving in Garibaldi’s army in the Battle of Mentana, where she was wounded and left for dead, Blavatsky claimed that she had become a student of Tibetan adepts who sent her telepathic messages. She viewed her destiny as the bringing of the “secret doctrine,” a body of knowledge she also called occultism, Brahma Vidya, wisdom religion and Divine Magic, to a materialistic yet psychically fertile western world.
Landing in New York in 1873, at the instruction of her spiritual “masters,” she spent a year drawing together a circle of admirers and following the progress of the spiritualist craze until she read one of Olcott’s accounts about the Chittenden mediums, It was karma, she thought. Olcott was to be her partner in the “great work.” Interest in these phenomena could be used to lead people to the esoteric teachings beyond them.
It sounded a bit melodramatic. But when HPB, or Jack as she was sometimes called, arrived in Vermont the materializations took an unexpected turn. In a 2004 historical novel, here is how I imagined Blavtatsky’s first meeting with Olcott might have gone:
From the instant she saw him, Helena knew that destiny was inexorably propelling her toward Henry Olcott. But destiny without willpower was surrender to fate, and she wasn’t one to surrender in any situation. As a result, once she knew where he could be found, the only issue was choosing precisely the right moment for introductions.
It finally presented itself in mid-October, as she surveyed the scene at the Eddy farm. Although she had kept him under surveillance since he entered the dining room, she wasn’t ready to admit her interest. Their first encounter should seem like his idea. Thus, when his eyes finally settled on her, she looked away.
On the other hand, now she was positive. He must be the one they had sent her to meet. The pull of karma filled her with a sense of relief that finally, after years of restless wandering, cosmic balance would be restored. She had felt it in New York, but had held back and lost track of him. Afterward, she waited, confident a sign would confirm her instinct. Less than a month later, it came — in the form of an article shown to her by a libidinous young doctor. Henry was back in Ghostland, and she was meant to follow.
She had no illusions. Olcott’s writing was superficial and glossy. He seemed to think that William Eddy was some natural adept or master sorcerer. He believed his eyes without guessing the truth. It didn’t matter. She could change all that. First, however, they had to get acquainted.
He had already noticed her. She’d made sure of that. Her scarlet shirt and short blonde hair were far enough from fashion to make her impossible to ignore. But when she saw him whispering to a pretty young girl, she briefly wondered if she had miscalculated. He might have a taste for corseted beauty, and Helena simply could be too large and unusual. For a moment, she felt like a teenager, eager for the attention of a new beau. It was an odd sensation, long forgotten but not entirely unexpected.
Then he walked across the room, took a seat opposite, and examined her. How bold, she thought, trying to ignore him. For several minutes she spoke French with Celeste, waiting impatiently for an introduction. He seemed fascinated, but could find no excuse to say hello.
Finishing her soup, Helena went outside to enjoy the splendid foliage. Gold and crimson on the bright green hills had turned the landscape into a natural Autumn tapestry. She gazed at the mountains and grass-covered slopes.
“Is he still watching us?” She asked Celeste.
“Watching you, you mean.”
Helena rolled a cigarette and searched for a match. Just then Olcott quickly moved to her side. “Permit me,” he said in French.
Now it was her turn. “Have you been here long?”
“Too long. And then again, maybe not long enough.”
“It must be thrilling. I mean, to keep you in such a remote place. So, what do you think? Is it really happening?
He didn’t need much prodding. Struggling with the words, he tried to describe what he had seen so far. This was amusing, but her ploy was getting in the way, so she suggested they continue in English. He was relieved, and clearly starved for good conversation.
He saw himself as a freethinker, and she had to agree. He did have some fresh ideas, rough but creative and promising. Reviewing the seances, he ruled out fraud and mass delusion. Instead, he had deduced that the actions and will of the medium were under some hidden control. Very perceptive, she thought.
“The issue isn’t whether these things are real,” he explained, “but what they are. Good, evil, or both? Have they lived on Earth before, or do they come from another planet? How much can they interfere with our affairs? Should we learn from them or run for our lives?”
Reasonable questions, and Helena assumed she could provide the answers. But saying so, without solid proof, might not secure his admiration. And that was what she craved.
“You know, I hesitated before coming here,” she said.
“Oh, were you frightened?”
“Of meeting that reporter, yes. What’s his name?”
“Olcott. Why be afraid of him?” How precious. He was reacting like a rejected child.
“He might put me in one of his articles.”
“Don’t concern yourself,” he said, sounding chivalrous. “I’m sure he won’t do that, unless you permit it?”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I am Colonel Henry Olcott. At your service.”
“Oh, my! Then I must apologize.”
“Your name will be more than sufficient.”
“Blavatsky. Helena de Blavatsky.” As she replied, she presented one hand for a kiss, A good start, she decided. Yer she also had to wonder what exactly had begun.
Her teachers had sent her from Cairo to Paris, then to America, and now to Henry and Vermont. Why? He and the spiritualists were lost in a fog. Even the way they talked about all of it was wrong. They spoke of “materializations” when spirits of the dead don’t take “material” form. They talked about spirit and soul as if there was no difference between the immaterial, divine principle and that vital breath of life shared with humans by every animal.
Spirit materializations! The proper description was spiritless materialism. Still, she knew that he was the key. At least he was searching for real answers, natural laws rather than gross superstitions.
Just two days after Beard’s visit, on October 14, with Helena now in the Circle Room, the materializations included a Russian boy who spoke a Georgian dialect and played a Circassian dance on his guitar, a merchant from Tiflis, a Kurdish warrior who had once been her bodyguard, an old Russian woman, and Helena’s own uncle. Where the Eddys or anyone else might have obtained such elaborate costumes no one will ever know.
Sitting down to develop contacts with the dead, she warned, “only opens the door to a swarm of ‘spooks,’ good, bad, and indifferent, to which the medium becomes a slave for life.” Whether conscious or unconscious, such experiments amount to necromancy, and might even interfere with the evolution of souls into higher states.
“While some of the so-called ‘spirits’ do not know what they are talking about, repeating merely — like poll-parrots — what they find in the medium’s and other people’s brains, others are most dangerous, and can only lead one to evil,” she wrote in The Key to Theosophy in 1889.
In Chittenden, Blavatsky declined to explain much of what had happened. She was determined, instead, to defend spiritualism against attacks by materialistic scientists like Beard. To make her point, she decided after two weeks to provide some lasting proof that would at least convince Olcott once and for all.
October 25 was her last night in the Circle Room. It was moist outside and, according to the daily papers, the night of a total lunar eclipse. Such eclipses can only occur at the full moon, which has often been linked to paranormal phenomena. The surface of the Earth is permeated with magnetic forces that, like the tides, are influenced by celestial bodies, including the moon. When the connection is spontaneous or unconscious, the effect is sometimes called a poltergeist, the movement of objects, often linked with adolescent frustration. When the connection is deliberate and controlled, on the other hand, we call the result psychokinesis or magic.
That evening in the Circle Room, William Eddy was apparently not the only person using a form of psychic energy. Blavatsky had decided to provide proof of occult power and show the fallacy of spiritualism. She would do it by materializing a solid object: a medal of honor once worn by her father and buried with him in Russia.
When the lights were struck she was holding it in her hand.
Within a year of her Chittenden visit Blavatsky and Olcott founded the Theosophical Society, which developed chapters worldwide over the next quarter century and deeply influenced the spiritual leaders like Annie Besant and Jiddi Krishmamurti; philosopher Rudolf Steiner; poets W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens; inventor Thomas Edison; transformative leaders leaders Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Augusto Sandino; and artists Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian. She gradually initiated Olcott into the secret doctrine, as her two-volume masterwork was called. After a tumultuous and controversial career she died in London in 1891. She was also the first Russian (actually born in Ukraine) ever to become an American citizen.
She once explained what had happened this way:
“I was sent to America on purpose. There I found Olcott in love with spirits, as he became in love with the Masters later on. I was ordered to let him know that spiritual phenomena without the philosophy of occultism were dangerous and misleading. I proved to him that all that mediums could do through spirits, others could do without any spirits at all.”
IV.
Theosophy and Cremation
In the four years between the first meeting of Blavatsky and Olcott in Vermont and their departure for India in late 1878 they launched the Theosophical movement. In later years, Blavatsky described Theosophy as a synthesis of science, philosophy and religion. However, she insisted it was not a religion, but rather “divine wisdom,” and its goal was “to reconcile all religions, sects and nations under a common system of ethics, based on eternal verities.”
The movement was rooted in a few basic beliefs. There was one absolute, incomprehensible and infinite essence, said Blavatsky, “the root of all nature, and of all that is, visible and invisible.” Humanity’s “eternal, immortal nature” is a radiation of what she called the “Universal Soul.” Beyond that, there was also the “divine work,” the rediscovery of technics, knowledge and rituals that had been lost for ages. The most important aim of the Theosophical movement was “the relief of human suffering under any or every form, moral as well as physical,” she wrote. “And we believe the former to be far more important than the latter.”
It was a period of growing friendship, deep thought, inspired writing and dogged organizing; there were countless committees, public meetings (Olcott was the speaker, Helena was learning English and had a distinct accent), pamphlets, and publicizing their new movement in the face of persistent ridicule.
One of their biggest projects in New York was the revival of cremation in America. Cemeteries had become breeding grounds for germs and toxins, they felt. The rotting dead not only released noxious vapors into the atmosphere but also poisoned water supplies. Surely, they concluded, the only hygienic way to dispose of a cadaver was to reduce it to ashes.
Beyond promoting Theosophy, Olcott was also an active member of the New York Cremation Society. Long considered a barbaric custom, cremation was enjoying a newfound respectability thanks to the efforts of public health activists. All that the Cremation Society lacked was a body and a crematorium.
The first problem was solved by the arrival of an impoverished Bavarian aristocrat, Baron Joseph Henry Louis Charles De Palm. He entered New York carrying only a trunk and a letter of introduction to Olcott. The colonel was so impressed by the baron's “engaging manners” that he appointed him to the leaderrship of the Theosophical Society. But the baron was ill and died in May 1876, leaving his possessions to Olcott. His final request: that his body be disposed of “in a fashion that would illustrate the Eastern notions of death and immortality.” In short, he wanted to be cremated.
“Here, at last, was the chance of having a body to burn,” Olcott wrote in his memoirs, Old Diary Leaves. It was also a chance to show the world how the new Theosophical Society honored its dead. The colonel and HPB set to work on an elaborate funeral ceremony to be held in New York’s Masonic Temple. After the ceremony, Baron De Palm’s body was to be handed over to the New York Cremation Society, which would organize the actual incineration.
The press greeted the announcement of the first Theosophical funeral service with ghoulish delight. The New York World printed a lampoon about it, predicting that Olcott would officiate dressed as an Egyptian priest, attended by a retinue of slaves bearing cider and asparagus. But Olcott rarely bore a grudge and thought it was “one of the wittiest burlesques” he had ever read. The Cremation Society was less amused and sent Olcott a curt note, complaining that "they would have to give up the cremation because of the great noise that the papers had made about the funeral and their attacks upon the Theosophical Society.”
The colonel was upset about the rebuke. And he had a decaying cadaver on his hands with no way to dispose of it. But ceremony would go ahead as planned. After all, the Theosophical Society had issued 2000 tickets to an expectant public, many quite eager to attend. But what about the actual cremation? The colonel considered burning the corpse in the open air, but the civic authorities said they wouldn’t allow that. So instead, he hastily embalmed the body with potter’s clay and carbolic acid. That removed a bit of pressure.
On the day of the ceremony, the Masonic Hall was packed, and appeared, at least to Olcott, to be “in a dangerous mood.” Outside, a line of policemen struggled to control the tide of people trying to force their way into the building. Decorated with mystic symbols by Madame Blavatsky, the coffin rested on a Masonic altar surrounded by seven candles representing the seven planets. A small group of Theosophists stood nearby, waving palm leaves to keep evil spirits at bay. Olcott conducted the ceremony, assisted by a Methodist preacher (the relative of a Theosophist).
“There is but one first cause, uncreated,” Olcott began, launching into the litany Madame Blavatsky had prepared. At this point, a Methodist leapt out of his seat, gesturing wildly and shouted, “That's a lie!”
“Some of the rougher sort mounted the chairs, and, looking towards the stage, seemed ready to take part in fighting or skirmishing in case such should break out,” recalled Olcott. “Stepping quietly forward, I laid my left hand upon the Baron’s coffin, faced the audience, stood motionless and said nothing. In an instant there was a dead silence of expectancy; whereupon, slowly raising my right hand, I said very slowly and solemnly: ‘We are in the presence of death!’ and then waited.
“The psychological effect was very interesting and amusing to me, who have for so many years been a student of crowds. The excitement was quelled like magic, and then in the same voice as before, and without the appearance of even having been interrupted, I finished the sentence of the litany —‘eternal, infinite, unknown.’”
As the troublesome Methodist was led away by the police, Madame Blavatsky, seated among the audience, stood up and pointed accusingly at him. “He's a bigot—that's what he is!” she yelled indignantly. The crowd burst into laughter, and the tension began to break. The ceremony proceeded without further incident. Even skeptical reporters had to acknowledge that Olcott had conducted himself masterfully.
The actual cremation didn’t take place until six months later. By then, Olcott had come into his so-called inheritance from the Baron. The press reported that he had bequeathed Olcott two Swiss castles and 20,000 acres of farmland, as well as shares in numerous gold and silver mines. In fact, he basically died penniless.
Making matters worse, a rumor also circulated that Baron De Palm was the true author of Isis Unveiled. Olcott was outraged. After all, the baron turned out to be a convicted fraudster. The idea that such a man could have composed the founding text of Theosophy was absurd and insulting. All in all, Olcott rued the day he ever crossed paths with De Palm. But he was a man of his word. He’d promised the baron a cremation, and would have it.
An opportunity finally arose when Olcott read that an eccentric Pennsylvania physician, Dr. Francis Lemoyne, had ordered the construction of a private crematorium for the disposal of his own remains. Olcott immediately wrote to Lemoyne asking if, in the meantime, he might bring Baron De Palm to be incinerated in the new facility. And so, on December 6, 1876, the baron was finally consigned to the flames.
Olcott made sure that the press was there. This was, after all, the first body to be cremated in the United States. The incineration itself went without a hitch. Olcott was happy to see “how clean and esthetical this mode of sepulture is in contrast with that of burial.” Afterwards, he and Lemoyne addressed a public meeting on cremation at town hall. Olcott returned to New York with the baron’s ashes in a “Hindu urn.” He later scattered them in the harbor “with an appropriate, yet simple, ceremonial.”
“And thus,” he wrote later with satisfaction, “the Theosophical Society not only introduced Hindu philosophical ideas into the United States, but also the Hindu mode of sepulture.”
V.
Recollections
The 1870s were a turning point both for the Chittenden mediums and the spiritualist movement. Although seances continued and Blavatsky’s movement did not fully take shape for a few years, interest in the Eddys and spirit materializations began to wane. The Eddy family quarreled, William retired from public life, and the farmland in Ladd Hollow was divided among the siblings and in-laws.
When I was doing research in the late 1970s not much was known about the Eddy’s activities in the last years of the 19th century. But Agnes Gould could still recall the exploits of Mary Eddy when we spoke in 1980. She was 96, the oldest Chittenden resident at the time, and filled with compassionate humor and simple wisdom. She didn’t believe in spiritualism, she said, but didn’t want to disprove those who did. In any case, she had stories about Mary Eddy indicating that the “ghost shop” may have degenerated into a con game.
“Mary Eddy used to come to my house,” she recalled. “While I was interested and wished her well and didn’t disapprove of what she was doing, I was never interested enough in it to take any part.” Nevertheless, she remembered the times when Mary would return from a summer of holding seances out of town “with one hundred silver dollars in her apron.”
Agnes’s mother-in-law once attended a seance given by Mary. She had hoped to contact her departed child, Nellie. “They had chairs circling the room,” Agnes said, “In the center on the floor there was a big pile of buffalo robes. She said the room was darkened. You could just see the outlines of everything. Well, they all sat down and held hands and this was when Nellie was supposed to come and see her mother.
“Grandma Gould said, ‘I sat there weeping,’ and suddenly a little white hand came out of those robes, and she said it was all dimpled. ‘Why, it was Nellie’s hand, I knew it the minute I saw it,’ she said. ‘Oh, let me hold it just a minute.’ But then she took hold of it, and said, ‘Why, that’s nothing but a white kid glove stuffed’.
“The lights went out,” Agnes continued. “She said it was black dark immediately. And when they put the lights on again all those robes were gone.”
Such shenanigans appear to have occurred more often as the spiritualist movement became a commercial enterprise. Yet in the case of the Eddys, Agnes thought the real problem was jealousy. “They’d get jealous of each other’s power, of each other’s success,” she remembered.
“If they’d kept honor among themselves, they would have been the richest people in the world…They had people coming from Europe and all over and they were selling people just like….and then they got jealous of each other and began telling lies about each other. People thought it was lies. If you were doing something,” she said, implying that one of the Eddy brothers had attacked Mary, “and your brother came out and said you were a crook, that you were cheating people, it spoils your reputation. People won’t necessarily believe it, but they won’t honor you anymore.”
While Mary Eddy Huntoon was holding seances and raising her daughters (at least one of whom thought she was a fake), William and Horatio Eddy were living across the road from their old homestead. Neither appears to have held regular jobs in later years, but they did some light farming. Horatio was known to perform what Mabel Potter called his “tricks.”
Agnes considered these simple magic tricks, things like “making a cane dance” by using thin thread that loops from one knee to another. Still Horatio did have a strong presence and penetrating black eyes, even in old age, and continued to frighten some neighbors. He died on Sept. 8, 1922.
Mabel recalled hearing about his outdoor funeral, held on the front lawn of his house. They sang “What a friend we have in Jesus,” and buried him in the cemetery on the other side of the village. He would one day be joined by his brother, who passed away Oct. 25, 1932.
Mabel was a young wife at the time, and remembers that when she moved into the area, “they weren’t practicing that (materializations) at all, and Mary was gone.” Mabel moved into Horatio’s house, and “they used to say to us, ‘You’re going to be afraid, because you’ll see heads floating down the stairway and chains rattling. They tried to scare me.”
She never did see ghosts, but knew people who had “seen things” and heard voices, For instance, someone saw a sewing machine in Horatio’s house, while he was still alive, start up unassisted in the middle of the night.
Mabel also remembered the time when seven people unexpectedly visited her. At one point she left them alone in the living room. When she returned, “they were all right together in a circle like. Trying to bring Horatio back, I guess. When I came into that room and they saw me they all spread out like nothing was going on.”
“They just wanted to see because Horatio lived there. They knew him. I think they were spiritualists, If I’d known I wouldn’t have let them in,” she added with a laugh. “But I was young. I didn’t know much then.”
The Riddle
Until his death, William Eddy remained a tall, solidly-built man with a full black beard and dark hair. In those later years not many people were interested in who he was. He had spent most of his life alone, a largely interior existence, never marrying, and declining to pursue the theatrical spiritualism practiced by his sister and brother.
Mabel Potter remembered William in his 90s, working in his garden. But neither she nor Agnes Gould had any stories to share about his use of psychic powers in those years. He did outlive his siblings, however, and likely took his secrets to his grave.
Will he be back? I asked Agnes. She doubted it. “I think there are people who can see into the future,” she said, “but I don’t think anybody can bring a person back to this Earth. Nobody but God.”
“And God wouldn’t want to bring someone back?” I said.
“Well, they wouldn’t want to come back,” she replied, then added almost rhetorically, “Who’d want to come back?” Madame Blavatsky would agree
But it remains a good question. Who would want to return after death? Can “spirits” do such things? Or is it the medium’s astral projection, combined with our own memories and will.
If the “spirits” who appeared in Chittenden were not ghosts, or mere mortals in disguise, what were they? It’s not possible to be certain. But the next time there is a lunar eclipse, I may return to Chittenden and try again to find out.
Next: Theosophy vs. Spiritualism: Blavatsky on Occultism, Ghosts and Reincarnation
In Development: Woman of Another World, a film about the early adventures of Blavatsky and Olcott in New York and Vermont
Want to know more? Read William Crookes’ 1874 Study:
Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism
Or check out the definitive account of events at the Eddy farm:
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