Case file · High strangeness
The Eddy brothers' séances, Chittenden
In 1874 crowds flocked to the Eddy farmhouse in Chittenden, Vermont, where William and Horatio Eddy produced 'materialized' spirits. There Henry Steel Olcott met Helena Blavatsky, and the two founded the Theosophical Society the next year.
1874 CE · 43.71, -72.95 · status: hoax
The account
Olcott wrote a long series on the séances for the New York Daily Graphic, later a book, 'People from the Other World'.
The sceptical view
Magicians and skeptics dismissed the materializations as fraud performed in a dark cabinet.