Holmes, Mr. and Mrs. Nelson (ca. 1874)

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Holmes, Mr. and Mrs. Nelson (ca. 1874)

Materialization mediums of Philadelphia who claimed "Katie King" and "John King" as their controls. The claim was supported by Henry T. Child, another medium, who published particulars of the two controls' corporeal lives as privately communicated to him in his study.

In 1873 the Holmeses—of longstanding good reputation— traveled to England, where they were charged with dishonorable attempts to raise money. The accounts of their powers of mediumship varied between séances. One family recognized a spirit face as that of a departed relative; in an account of that experience in The Spiritualist, the Reverend Stainton Moses, stated that the light was good and the face was only a few feet away from the sitters. After their return to the United States, a General Lippitt publicly endorsed the Holmeses' mediumship in The Galaxy in December 1874.

The Holmeses' fall from grace is amply demonstrated in the change undergone by their once-powerful advocate, Robert Dale Owen, who initially wrote:

"I have seen Katie on seven or eight different occasions, suspended, in full form, about two feet from the ground for ten or fifteen seconds. It was within the cabinet, but in full view; and she moved her arms and feet gently, as a swimmer upright in the water might. I have seen her, on five different evenings, disappear and reappear before my eyes, and not more than eight or nine feet distant. On one occasion, when I had given her a calla lily, she gradually vanished, holding it in her hand; and the lily remained visible after the hand which held it was gone; the flower, however, finally disappearing also. When she reappeared the lily came back also, at first a bright spot only, which gradually expanded into a flower."

On November 2, 1874, Owen additionally affirmed: "I stake whatever reputation I may have acquired, after eighteen years' study of spiritualism, as a dispassionate observer upon the genuine character of these phenomena."

Nevertheless, a month later, on December 6, 1874, he declared in The Banner of Light : "Circumstantial evidence, which I have just obtained, induces me to withdraw the assurances which I have heretofore given of my confidence in the genuine character of certain manifestations presented last summer, in my presence, through Mrs. and Mr. Nelson Holmes."

A similar notice was published by Henry T. Child.

The reason for the sudden change was the revelation that Eliza White, the Holmeses' landlady, claimed that she had impersonated Katie King by slipping in through a false panel of the cabinet. A demonstration of the impersonation was given to Owen and Child. The newspapers made a great sensation of the exposure. The Holmeses appeared to have been ruined.

Then Henry Olcott came to the rescue. He investigated and soon discovered very serious discrepancies in White's story. Affidavits were given to him alleging White's bad moral reputation and dishonest nature. A New Jersey justice of the peace testified to having heard White singing in another room while "Katie King" appeared before Owen and Child.

General Lippitt told of a thorough investigation of the cabinet with a professional magician who was satisfied that there was no chance of any trick. Letters were produced by the Holmeses that spoke against the probability of any conspiracy between them and Eliza White. On the contrary, they proved that White tried to blackmail them much earlier by threatening to claim that she impersonated "Katie King."

Additional evidence also seemed to vindicate the Holmeses: At the time of the mock séance before Child and Owen, the Holmeses had a real séance with 20 people at which the spirits appeared.

On the basis of these facts, and allowing for the dubious part that Child appeared to have played in the affair, Olcott concluded that the Holmeses should be tested again without reference to the past. This he did. He netted a cabinet to proof it against surreptitious entry and put Mrs. Holmes into a bag tied around her neck. The experiments were repeated in his own room. Olcott became satisfied that Mrs. Holmes was a genuine and powerful medium for materializations, an opinion he affirms in his book People from the Other World (1875). General Lippitt shared his conclusions.