HPB-SB-1-7: Difference between revisions

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The man who has a mania for “exposing” all extraordinary phenomena as frauds is as sure to arise as the phenomena themselves. His name to-day is Dr. George M. Beard, of New York. The peculiar operations of young Mr. Brown having been completely explained, he has been taking a turn with the mysteries of Spirit Vale, and in a communication to The Daily Graphic exposes the Eddys with equal ease. Those who have witnessed Mr. Brown’s achievements cannot help being somewhat prejudiced against Dr. Beard as a fair-minded investigator, for it is quite plain that “unconscious muscular action” is ridiculously inadequate to meet the conditions of many of his performances, and yet Beard, having started with that preconceived idea, obstinately insists on stretching it to make if fit them all. So with his “expose” of the Eddys. It is not, of course, impossible that the Eddys should yet be proved humbugs, but it is quite certain that Dr. Beard has not done it. He got into the house of the brothers by leaving his hair uncombed, his boots unblacked and his heard unshaved, and otherwise managing his natural advantages so as to pass for a feeble-minded Spiritualist. Then he “diplomatized,” let us say, profusely, making believe see and recognize spirits when he didn't, and finally got admitted to a dark seance and a light seance. Very little was seen at the former, only the apparition “Honto,” and one other, which did not speak, exhibited, and both, Dr. Beard pronounces, wore personated by William Eddy, as he believes all others are, with the help of the spectator's imagination. In the light seance he assisted Horatio Eddy, and detected that individual in officiating as the spiritual guitar player. Colonel Olcott, who has been in Chittenden for several weeks investigating, and whose illustrated papers have been published in The Daily Graphic, Dr. Beard declares to be as “credulous as a baby” and incapable of telling the truth in regard to anything that takes place in the Eddy seances. The doctor gives a summary of the ring and rope and other feats, all of which are too familiar bits of jugglery to deserve serious attention. It may be at once conceded that all that really catches the public attention in the performances of this Vermont family, and all that they care to have light thrown upon, is the materialization. It is the new thing in their line. Unless the doctor's blunt charge is true, and Colonel Olcott lies by the wholesale, Dr Beard's “exposure” is absurd.

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