People from the Other World

By Benno Loewy and Henry Steel Olcott

Book Overview

The lawyer and journalist Henry Steel Olcott (1832-1907) published People from the Other World in 1875. Part 1 of the work is a careful account of Olcott's 1874 investigations into the famous Eddy brothers of Chittenden, Vermont, and their claimed psychic powers. Part 2 is a report into two Philadelphia mediums who claimed to be able to call up two spirits called John and Katie King. The account includes descriptions of s ances, healings, levitation, teleportation and the famous Compton transfiguration. Olcott, a founding member of the Theosophical Society and its first president, was a pioneer of psychical research. This work, deeply influenced by Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891), who he met at Chittenden, is one of his most popular. It offers an important insight into the nineteenth-century fascination with the occult and is a classic example of a Victorian attempt to approach the supernatural with the rigours of scientific investigation.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1108072658
• ISBN13: 9781108072656
• Release Date: May 2011
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 504 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.5" x 8.5"