Blavatsky H.P. - About Spiritualism

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About Spiritualism

by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writtings, vol. 1, page(s) 36-44

Publications: The Daily Graphic, New York, Vol. VI, November 13, 1874, pp. 90-91

Also at: KH; UT

In other languages: Russian

In Scrapbooks: 1:6

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36...

ABOUT SPIRITUALISM

To the Editor of The Daily Graphic:

As Dr. Beard has scorned (in his scientific grandeur) to answer the challenge sent to him by your humble 37 servant in the number of The Daily Graphic for the 30th of October last, and preferred instructing the public in general rather than one “credulous fool” in particular, let her come from Circassia or Africa, I fully trust you will permit me to use your paper once more, in order that by pointing out some very spicy peculiarities of this amazingly scientific exposure, the public might better judge to whose door the aforesaid elegant epithet could be more appropriately laid.

For a week or so an immense excitement, a thrill of sacrilegious fear, if I am allowed this expression, ran through the psychologized frames of the Spiritualists of New York. It was rumored in ominous whispers that G. Beard, M.D., the Tyndall of America, was coming out with his peremptory exposure of the Eddys’ ghosts, and—the Spiritualists trembled for their gods!

The dreaded day has come; the number of The Daily Graphic for November the 9th is before us. We have read it carefully, with respectful awe—for true science has always been an authority for us (weak-minded fool though we may be), and so we handled the dangerous exposure with a feeling somewhat akin to the one of a fanatic Christian opening a volume of “Büchner.” We perused it to the last; we turned the page over and over again, vainly straining our eyes and brain to detect therein one word of scientific proof or a solitary atom of overwhelming evidence that would thrust into our spiritualistic bosom the venomous fangs of doubt. But no; not a particle of reasonable explanation or a scientific evidence that what we have all seen, heard, and felt at the Eddys’ was but delusion. In our feminine modesty, still allowing the said article the benefit of the doubt, we disbelieved our own senses, and so devoted a whole day to the picking up of sundry bits of criticism from judges that we believed more competent than ourselves, and at last came collectively to the following conclusion:

The Daily Graphic has allowed Dr. Beard in its magnanimity nine columns of its precious pages to prove—what? Why, the following: First, that he, Dr. Beard, according 38 to his own modest assertions (see columns second and third), is more entitled to occupy the position of an actor entrusted with characters of simpletons (Molière’s Tartuffe might fit him perhaps as naturally) than to undertake the difficult part of a Prof. Faraday vis-à-vis the Chittenden D. D. Home.

Secondly, that notwithstanding the learned doctor was “overwhelmed already with professional labours” (a nice and cheap réclame, by the way) and scientific researches, he gave the latter another direction, and so went to the Eddys’. That arrived there he played with Horatio Eddy, for the glory of science and the benefit of humanity, the difficult character of a “dishevelled simpleton,” and was rewarded in his scientific research by finding on the said suspicious premises a professor of bumps, “a poor harmless fool”! Galileo, of famous memory, when he detected the sun in its involuntary imposture, chuckled certainly less over his triumph than does Dr. Beard over the discovery of this “poor fool” No. 1. Here we modestly suggest that perhaps the learned doctor had no business to go so far as Chittenden for that.

Further, the doctor, forgetting entirely the wise motto “non bis in idem,” discovers and asserts throughout the length of his article that all the past, present, and future generations of pilgrims to the “Eddy homestead” are collectively fools, and that every solitary member of this numerous body of Spiritualistic pilgrims is likewise “a weak-minded, credulous fool”! Query—The proof of it, if you please, Dr. Beard? Answer—Dr. Beard has said so, and Echo responds, Fool!

Truly miraculous are thy doings indeed, O Mother Nature! The cow is black and its milk is white! But then, you see, those ill-bred, ignorant Eddy brothers have allowed their credulous guests to eat up all the “trout” caught by Dr. Beard and paid by him seventy-five cents per pound as a penalty; and that fact alone might have turned him a little—how shall we say, sour, prejudiced? No; erroneous in his statement will answer better.

For erroneous he is, not to say more. When, assuming 39 an air of scientific authority, he affirms that the séance-room is generally so dark that one cannot recognize at three feet distance his own mother, he says what is not true. When he tells us further that he saw through a hole in one of the shawls and the space between them all the manoeuvres of Horatio’s arm, he risks to find himself belied by thousands who, weak-minded though they may be, are not blind for all that, neither are they confederates of the Eddys, but far more reliable witnesses in their simple-minded honesty than Dr. Beard is in his would-be scientific and unscrupulous testimony. The same when he says that no one is allowed to approach the spirits nearer than twelve feet distance, still less to touch them, except the “two simple-minded, ignorant idiots” who generally sit on both ends of the platform. To my knowledge many other persons have sat there besides those two.

Dr. Beard ought to know this better than anyone else, as he has sat there himself. A sad story is in circulation, by the way, at the Eddys’. The records of the spiritual séances at Chittenden have devoted a whole page to the account of a terrible danger that has threatened for a moment to deprive America of one of her brightest scientific stars. Dr. Beard, admitting a portion of the story himself, perverts the rest of it, as he does everything else in his article. The doctor admits that he has been badly struck by the guitar, and, not being able to bear the pain, “jumped up” and broke the circle. Now it clearly appears that the learned gentleman has neglected to add to the immense stock of his knowledge the first rudiments of “logic.” He boasts himself of having completely blinded Horatio and others as to the real object of his visit. What should then Horatio pummel his head for? The spirits were never known before to be as rude as that. But then Dr. B. does not believe in their existence and so puts the whole thing to Horatio’s door. He forgets to state, though, that a whole shower of missiles were thrown at his head, and that, “pale as a ghost”—so says the tale-telling record—the poor scientist surpassed for a moment the “fleet-footed Achilles” himself in the celerity with which he took to 40 his heels. How strange if Horatio, not suspecting him still, left him standing at two feet distance from the shawl? How very logical?

It becomes evident that the said neglected logic was keeping company at the time with old mother Truth at the bottom of her well, not being wanted, none of them, by Dr. Beard. I myself have sat upon the upper step of the platform for fourteen nights by the side of Mrs. Cleveland. I got up every time “Honto” approached me to an inch of my face in order to see her the better. I have touched her hands repeatedly as other spirits have been touched, and even embraced her nearly every night. Therefore, when I read Dr. Beard’s preposterous and cool assertion that “a very low order of genius is required to obtain command of a few words in different languages and so to mutter them to credulous Spiritualists,” I feel every right in the world to say in my turn that such a scientific exposure as Dr. Beard has come out with in his article does not require any genius at all; per contra, it requires the most ridiculous faith on the part of the writer in his own infallibility, as well as a positive confidence in finding in all his readers what he elegantly terms “weak-minded fools.” Every word of his statement, when it is not a most evident untruth, is a wicked and malicious insinuation, built on the very equivocal authority of one witness against the evidence of thousands.

Says Dr. Beard, “I have proved that the life of the Eddys is one long lie; the details need no further discussion.” The writer of the above lines forgets, by saying these imprudent words, that some people might think that “like attracts the like.” He went to Chittenden with deceit in his heart and falsehood on his lips, and so, judging his neighbour by the character he assumed himself, he takes everyone for a knave when he does not put him down as a fool. Declaring so positively that he has proved it, the doctor forgets one trifling circumstance, namely, that he has proved nothing whatever.

Where are his boasted proofs? When we contradict him by saying that the séance-room is far from being as dark 41 as he pretends it to be, and that the spirits have repeatedly called out themselves through Mrs. Eaton’s voice for more light, we only say what we can prove before any jury. When Dr. Beard says that all the spirits are personated by W. Eddy, he advances what would prove to be a greater conundrum for solution than the apparition of spirits themselves. There he falls right away into the domain of Cagliostro: for if Dr. B. has seen five or six spirits in all, other persons, myself included, have seen one hundred and nineteen in less than a fortnight, nearly all of whom were differently dressed. Besides, the accusation of Dr. Beard implies the idea to the public that the artist of The Daily Graphic who made the sketches of so many of those apparitions, and who is not a “credulous Spiritualist” himself, is likewise a humbug, propagating to the world what he did not see, and so thrusting at large the most preposterous. and outrageous lie.

When the learned doctor will have explained to us how any man in his shirt-sleeves and a pair of tight pants for an attire can possibly conceal on his person (the cabinet having been previously found empty) a whole bundle of clothes, women’s robes, hats, caps, headgears, and entire suits of evening dress, white waistcoats and neckties included, then he will be entitled to more belief than he is at present. That would be a proof indeed, for, with all due respect to his scientific mind, Dr. Beard is not the first Oedipus that had thought of catching the Sphinx by its tail and so unriddle the mystery. We have known more than one “weak-minded fool,” ourselves included, that has laboured under a similar delusion for more than one night, but all of us were finally obliged to repeat the words of the great Galileo, Eppur si muove! and give it up.

But Dr. Beard, he does not give it up. Preferring to keep a scornful silence as to any reasonable explanation, he hides the secret of the above mystery in the depths of his profoundly scientific mind. “His life is given to scientific researches,” you see; “his physiological knowledge and neuro-physiological learning are immense,” for he says so, and skilled as he is in combating fraud by still greater 42 fraud (see column the eighth), spiritualistic humbug has no more mysteries for him. In five minutes this scientist has done more towards science than all the rest of the scientists put together have done in years of labour, and “would feel ashamed if he had not.” (See same column.) In the overpowering modesty of his learning he takes no credit upon himself for having done so, though he has discovered the astounding, novel fact of the “cold benumbing sensation.” How Wallace, Crookes, and Varley, the naturalist-anthropologist, the chemist and electrician, will blush with envy in their old country! America alone is able to produce on her fertile soil such quick and miraculous intellects. Veni, vidi, vici! was the motto of a great conqueror. Why would not Dr. Beard select for his crest the same? And then, not unlike the Alexanders and the Caesars of the antiquity (in the primitive simplicity of his manners), he abuses people so elegantly, calling them “fools” when he cannot find a better argument.

A far more wise mind than Dr. Beard (shall he dispute the fact?) has suggested, centuries ago, that the tree was to be judged according to its fruits. Spiritualism, notwithstanding the desperate efforts of more scientific men than himself, stands its ground without flinching for more than a quarter of a century. Where are the fruits of the tree of science that blossoms on the soil of Dr. Beard’s mind? If we are to judge of them by his article, then, verily, the said tree needs more than usual care. As for the fruits, it would appear that they are as yet in the realms of “sweet delusive hope.” But then, perhaps, the doctor was afraid to crush his readers under the weight of his learning (true merit has been in all days modest and unassuming), and that accounts for the learned doctor withholding from us any scientific proof of the fraud that he pretends exposing, except the above-mentioned fact of the “cold benumbing sensation.” But how Horatio can keep his hand and arm ice-cold under a warm shawl for half an hour at a time, in summer as well as in any other season, and that without having some ice concealed about his person, or how he can prevent it from thawing—all the above is a 43 mystery that Dr. Beard doesn’t reveal for the present. Maybe he will tell us something of it in his book that he advertises in the article. Well, we only hope that the former will be more satisfactory than the latter.

I will add but a few words before ending my debate with Dr. Beard for ever. All that he says about the lamp concealed in a bandbox, the strong confederates, etc., exists but in his imagination, for the mere sake of argument, we suppose. “False in one, false in all,” says Dr. Beard on column the sixth. These words are a just verdict to his own article.

Here I will briefly state what I reluctantly withheld up to the present moment from the knowledge of all such as Dr. Beard. The fact was too sacred in my eyes to allow it to be trifled with in newspaper gossiping. But now, in order to settle the question at once, I deem it my duty as a Spiritualist to surrender it to the opinion of the public.

On the last night that I spent with the Eddys, I was presented by George Dix and Mayflower with a silver decoration, the upper part of a medal with which I was but too familiar. I quote the precise words of the spirit: “We bring you this decoration, for we think you will value it more highly than anything else. You shall recognize it, for it is the badge of honour that was presented to your father by his Government for the campaign of 1828, between Russia and Turkey. We got it through the influence of your uncle, who appeared to you here this evening. We brought it from your father’s grave at Stavropol. You shall identify it by a certain sign known to yourself.” These words were spoken in the presence of forty witnesses. Colonel Olcott will describe the fact and give the design of the decoration.

I have the said decoration in my possession. I know it as having belonged to my father. More, I have identified it by a portion that, through carelessness, I broke myself 44 many years ago, and, to settle all doubt in relation to it, I possess the photograph of my father (a picture that has never been at the Eddys’, and could never possibly have been seen by any of them) on which this medal is plainly visible.

Query for Dr. Beard: How could the Eddys know that my father was buried at Stavropol; that he was ever presented with such a medal, or that he had been present and in actual service at the time of the war of 1828?

Willing as we are to give every one his due, we feel compelled to say on behalf of Dr. Beard that he has not boasted of more than he can do, advising the Eddys to take a few private lessons of him in the trickery of mediumship. The learned doctor must be expert in all such trickeries. We are likewise ready to admit that in saying as he did that “his article would only confirm the more the Spiritualists in their belief” (and he ought to have added, “convince no one else”), Dr. Beard has proved himself to be a greater “prophetic medium” than any other in this country!

H. P. BLAVATSKY. 23 Irving Place.

[In H.P.B.’s Scrapbook, Vol. I, pp. 6-7, where the above article is pasted, H.P.B. added in pen and ink under her signature:]

So much in defence of phenomena, as to whether these Spirits are ghosts is another question.

H.P.B.

–––––––

[In H.P.B.’s Scrapbook, Vol. I, pp. 7-8, there is a cutting from The Daily Graphic of November 1874, which deals with the visit of a Mr. Brown, the “mind reader,” to the Eddys’ Homestead. Mr. Brown relates how one of the “spirits” brought to H.P.B. one of the decorations which had belonged to her father, and says that “Madame was overwhelmed with gratitude.”

H.P.B. underlined the word overwhelmed and added at the end of the article in pen and ink:]

Overwhelmed—be switched! . . . . not my father’s pet, if you please. H. P. Blavatsky is never “overwhelmed.”

45[In Scrapbook, Vol. I, p. 8, the account of Mr. Brown is followed immediately by an article entitled “Unpractical Spirits,” presumably also from The Daily Graphic. It is signed with the initials “I.F.F.” which obviously stand for Irvin Francis Fern. H.P.B. added the following remarks in pen and ink:]

Bravo! Irvin Francis Fern—a great Occultist. He IS RIGHT but we have to defend phenomena & prove it too before we teach them philosophy.

Footnotes

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