Some speculated that the creatures were accidental mutations, optical illusions, or elaborately costumed animals. Others (correctly) believed they were surgically assembled hybrids. But Dr. Black himself claimed they were newly discovered life forms. From the fall 1891 issue of Chicago Journal of Science:
A man, scientist or not, who can manipulate nature through vivisection or any means to this end does not practice science but instead knows it––and possesses a power that no man should wield, for this work no man should have wrought.
—William J. Getty, M.D., F.R.S.C.
(Professor of Surgery in the Anatomy Department of the
University of Medical Science, New York)
Some of the performers in the Human Renaissance were Dr. Black’s patients from Ward C; others were patients he’d met during his travels with the American Carnival. All their conditions were extreme. One young man was said to have had leg transplants; he bore the limbs of a much taller man with a darker complexion. Another patient was a formerly conjoined twin, a seventeen-year-old girl named Rose. Her surgical procedure was so elaborate that it involved a new heart, lung, kidney, spleen, and arm. The girl’s parents said that Black had even made her prettier than before. Her twin sister had died during the surgery.
To the malformed, the sick, or the diseased, Dr. Black had become something of a folk hero. He was ridiculed in the mainstream scientific community but revered by many, especially those afflicted with unusual illnesses. Black wrote this quip to the Chicago Journal of Science:
Newspaper clipping from the National Journal of Medicine and Science. Despite their claims of being a national publication, the Journal was based in Philadelphia and rarely covered events outside the immediate region. Its readership consisted largely of local residents, not medical professionals.
Your suspicions are acute and undoubtedly not without the prerequisite research on the nature of my work. Why, you’d think that we [doctors] were monsters the way some go on about their God and sanctimony and blasphemes. We are scientists, not demons.
The tradition of carnival performers providing food, medicine, and other charities to the needy and sick still carries on in Black’s name in many regions of the world. While he toured, his reputation for offering surgical help, sometimes called miracles, was widespread enough to warrant pilgrimages to see him. There are accounts of children suffering from life-threatening defects whose families traveled hundreds of miles, and sometimes even farther, to seek out his services. On one such occasion Black wrote in October 1891:
She was brought to us with neither arms nor legs, brought not only to our show, but here on Celestial Terra itself. When she was found, there were none to claim her. She was alone save the box and a letter that the poor child was abandoned with. Her family, ashamed of their daughter, failed to see what she really was––they saw only a monster. The condition of her birth and deformity was not a punishment or an omen or a hex cast upon her. She has lost blood, precious blood. I will give her back what was supposed to be hers.
The patient was a nine-year-old girl, Miriam Helmer. She was born with no arms (only hands) and very short legs, quite possibly a form of the condition known as Roberts syndrome. Dr. Black grafted wings onto the girl’s shoulders, and, after a brief healing period, she began performing in his show. Black presented her as the winged woman, claiming that her lack of arms was a genetic attempt to sprout wings; the failure could be attributed to the fact that her composition was largely human. Miriam performed in the show for several years before she died from unknown causes in 1899.
With Miriam Helmer, Black introduced his theory of self-resurrection—the idea that he could unlock the body’s natural memory of its ancestral past by giving it real physical reminders. Armed with these prompts, the body could rebuild on its ancient knowledge and then “self-resurrect.” He cites numerous references to self-resurrection in a book called The Book of Breath, but it is widely believed this book is one that Black himself was writing. To this day, no manuscript or volume with a similar title or description has ever been found.
The Human Renaissance show ran from 1892 to 1893 and attracted controversy with every new performance. Disturbances and fights were common, religious leaders protested Dr. Black’s creations, political leaders spoke out against him, and nearly the entire medical community decried his legitimacy. Even the American Eugenics Society found fault with Dr. Black, describing his work as regressive:
[It is] an abolition of modern efforts––an attack on the human form. These beasts are not natural, as Dr. Black says. They ought not be displayed for the public but rather driven back into extinction.
—Edward Stalts, Director of the American Eugenics Society
But as has been evidenced all along, Black was not easily discouraged; he was accustomed to arguing and fighting. He had grown into a different kind of showman, one who was quick-tempered and eager to rouse a crowd into a frenzy. His last public performance was at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Scheduled to perform for two months, he lasted just three days. At every show, he was mocked and ridiculed; the mobs grew larger and larger. On the third day of performances, the crowd rushed his stage, killed some of the animals, and burned many of his artifacts before forcing him out. Black was devastated.
July 1893
Bernard,
Perhaps you have heard, perhaps the jubilant laughter of my demise was carried freely through the air by Hermes himself, or perhaps you still do not know. I was in attendance at the Columbian Exposition––The World’s Fair. I was ridiculed, mocked, and spit upon. They meant to harm me. These are the people, the public, whom I as a doctor ventured to heal? These are the wounded and sick that I labored to discover cures and remedies for?
What wretched flesh they are. They will learn that I can do much more than heal, dear brother––I swear to you that. I can do much more now.
Your brother––do not forget that.
After his failure in Chicago, Dr. Black would never host another public appearance, although he would continue to perform in private for select audiences. These shows were not widely advertised (and in most cases were not publicized at all). There is little information about the contents of the guest list or what exactly the performances entailed. Itineraries suggest that the show remained active, visiting three or four venues every week.
We do believe that the show remained in cities for only one or two days at a time. Sometimes it was presented in private homes or theaters; often Dr. Black had no choice but to perform in secluded wilderness settings. It’s rumored that he performed in the Hills Capital Building in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, just one night before it was burned to the ground. In various journals and diaries, spectators have described an “unholy” feeling about the performance and its practitioners.
The show traveled in America until the winter of 1895. Spencer, Elise, Alphonse, and possibly six or more performers and assistants were leaving New York, but instead of heading south to avoid the coming cold weather, Black decided to travel north to meet with Alexander Goethe. Goethe was a wealthy, eccentric naturalist who paid Black for a private demonstration of the show, to be performed at his opulent palatial estate.
Goethe possessed several bizarre “cabinets of curiosities,” which were common among aristocrats of the late nineteenth century. The care and effort given to his collection were extraordinary; it was often described as “a new wonder of the world.” There were so many artifacts that they required their own separate building: dried skins of Visigoth warriors, Mayan weapons, embalmed priests from Egypt, and a number of questionable artifacts, including the arm of a siren and the torso of a sphinx. Goethe claimed that he fished the arm of the siren from the Indian Ocean and said that it fought with a ferocity that made him believe he had hooked a Spartan soldier instead. He claimed that the sphinx was found dead on the shore of the Nile and beasts had torn it to pieces, leaving only the tattered remains that he housed in his museum.
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nt for the World’s Columbian Exposition, also known as the World’s Fair, 1893. The bird-faced creature (harpy) in the center was possibly one of Black’s earlier taxidermy creations. One spectator claimed, “We saw the beasts move on the stage. They crowed and moaned like real living things. Not God’s creatures but instead something else, something terrible.” Many dismissed the performance as a type of hoax or optical illusion.
Spring 1896
A chance encounter has allowed me an introduction to the well-known Alexander Goethe—explorer, collector of all things, and man of the world. He was not as I supposed him to be. No, he was a crass and unpleasant creature, his spine crooked in the side, his bones too long for his legs and scorn painted on his face.
The man spoke from within a cloud of smoke sweeter than the scent of opium. He told me he smoked the nectar of the lotus and that only he knew how to extract the essential ingredients needed for the everlasting smoke. After a time, I was invited to see his vast collection, a superior one to any I had ever borne witness to. Though I swore to him that I would not disclose what was housed therein, neither in public nor in privately recorded accounts, I can testify that there are indeed wonders in this world.
No records remain of Goethe’s extraordinary collection; most of it was consumed in a 1902 blaze. A few artifacts were recovered, but certainly nothing remarkable. It is likely there was nothing worth recovering, anyway: Alexander Goethe was arrested in 1897 for fraud and theft, and he died in prison in 1912.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Dr. Black took the Human Renaissance overseas, where it performed quite well. There are accounts of performances in the British Isles, Europe, and farther south in what is now Turkey, Syria, and Israel. Evidence of its presence can be found in nearby museums; the local folklore includes tales of a magician with a magic knife and testimonies from people claiming to have been healed by Dr. Black.
Throughout the international tour, Black claimed he had the power to raise the dead, to make people live longer or even forever. He asserted that he could change the genders and ages of his patients. He performed his surgeries live on stage, in what surely must have been macabre performances. Two descriptions are given here by anonymous spectators:
May 3, 1900
He spoke to the audience for a very long time, discussing things I didn’t really understand but it sounded sensible and I knew what he meant––but I didn’t understand. He then escorted one of his guests from behind the back of the curtains; the doctor explained that the man’s legs had been amputated after an infection took over. The doctor’s assistants then placed the man on the table. Dr. Black began to work immediately; remarkably, the man didn’t seem to feel any pain. I had seen this sort of thing before, so I thought it was going to be just a trick. There was so much blood though and I was sitting very close; I knew it was real. He took the legs of a dead man and sewed them on. He told us that this procedure can only be done if the body of the donor was recently deceased—very recently, he said. That’s when I didn’t want to watch any longer but I couldn’t leave, the theater was so quiet, how could I have left? … After only an hour, the man walked. Everyone applauded but I couldn’t; how could I? I saw demon magic, on stage, everyone saw it. The devil has his own private surgeon, and I saw him …
* * *
June 12, 1901
I witnessed this creation with my own cognition, reason, scientific training, and––least of all––my eyes. This was neither nature nor mischief. The creatures deceased and embalmed, were as described on the playbill, but more perfect than I had expected in their proportions and in what appeared to be a natural displacement of all organic systems, hair, muscle, etc.…
I cannot imagine a feasible method to arrive at the same result if I were charged with the task of creating such a thing. If this was the work of a charlatan or fraud, then perhaps one of either immense skill or supernatural assistance; the latter I reject, the former troubles me as though I had witnessed a magic trick so persuasive that it was not a trick at all. I am unable to understand this thing which I saw laid before God and spectator.
These performances made Spencer Black incredibly wealthy, even as more and more people described him as one of the greatest con men of his time. Critics wrote, “He is nothing more than a magician or a trickster” and “Dr. Black is here to take your money and your good senses.” Yet curiously no records exist of any critics who admitted to viewing the show.
It is rumored that Dr. Black performed surgery on his son Alphonse, completing a procedure that rendered him “ageless.” He then christened him with a new name, the Sleepless Man. Black makes reference to this in a passage from his journals:
I can prevent death. I can dip my hand into the pool of the fountain of youth; I can cause one to live, be born from death or be spared of its ravages. The sleepless man will forever drink from that fountain. After one sees the true work of God laid beside the work of man for the benefit of comparison, then one can learn finally, as a child does, that the latter is merely a trinket––an object that does nothing.
I have come to know that a great number of scientists are atheistic by social ideological comparisons, though they may believe in God, their fundamental belief in nature forbids them from any canonical society. What surprises me greatly is the number of religious surgeons and scientists alike. One can only pretend they do not understand the true meaning of nature for a finite length of time. Their confession is inevitable.
It is no man’s right to see what I show them––but instead a privilege. This privilege must be bridled by a discretion that only I can discern, that only I am able to judge.
The show continued for eight years until a private performance in Budapest during the fall of 1901 went terribly wrong. During that show one of his creatures, the Serpent Queen, attacked a member of the audience. Nothing more is known about the performance or the victim. The written accounts by local authorities reveal only that the patron died while in attendance of the performance called the Human Renaissance, hosted by the American surgeon and performer Dr. Spencer Black. The incident must have had a great impact on Black because he never performed again. He returned to his house in Philadelphia, where he proceeded to expand his research facility.
Since leaving Spencer and taking custody of Samuel in 1887, Bernard Black had remained in New York, where he met and married Emma Werstone, a wealthy widow from a good family. Her first husband, an officer in the southern frontier, had been killed in the Spanish–American War. Bernard and Emma were married in 1899 and together they raised Samuel, a promising student interested in architecture and engineering. He went on to graduate from the prestigious Wayne and Miller School of Architecture.
As the Human Renaissance traveled throughout Europe, Bernard received numerous letters from Spencer. Most were short, incomplete, and often frightfully obscure and confusing. Because Spencer was always moving from one town to the next, there was no way for Bernard to deliver a reply. This may explain why Spencer’s letters often read like journal entries or inebriated nonsense. Strangely, he never mentions Elise’s horrible condition; his letters to Bernard suggest that they are merely suffering from domestic troubles.
December 1897
Dearest Brother,
All things are unrelenting; all of the once gentle and supple nectars of life are now venomous and cruel. I am unable to manage my affairs. My bones have dried and cracked and my poor Elise doesn’t forgive me … I know what she must think of me. My son, Alphonse is a beast of another sort––he is often angry, he has a deep internal malady, I fear him … his destiny.
I have nothing now. I am tired and care little of anything. I am lost, dear brother.
I miss the company you had once offered. I regret that I cannot see you and I do wish––most sincerely––that you are filled with joy, that life cradles you as one of its most beloved.
Spencer
* * *
June 1898
Dear friend Bernard,
&nbs
p; I trust this letter finds you well. It has been a long while since my last letter. I have been quite busy, I assure you. I cannot say very much at the moment, for the work undertaken and what is presently at hand is far too difficult to detail within the pages of a mere note.
I can say that I offer great apologies to you. I did not mean to cause you alarm or worry at my less orthodox interests. I have suffered a great number of tragedies. My beloved Elise is well; she manages, I suspect.
The Resurrectionist Page 5
