“The house of one of these, namely Mr. Wallace, I have already
visited, and made there the acquaintance of the lady who was
the reputed medium between Mr. Wallace and the supernatural.
“And if earnestly invited by Mr. Crookes, the editor of the
‘Chemical News,’ to witness phenomena which in his opinion
‘tend to demonstrate the existence of some power (magnetic
or otherwise) which has not yet been recognized by men of
science,’ I should pay due respect to his invitation.
“But understand my position: more than a year ago Mr. Cromwell
Varley, who is, I believe, one of the greatest modern
Spiritualists, did me the favor to pay me a visit, and he
then employed a comparison which, though flattering to my
spiritual strength, seems to mark me out as unfit for spiritual
investigation. He said that my presence at a _seance_ resembled
that of a great magnet among a number of small ones. I throw
all into confusion. Still he expressed a hope that arrangements
might be made to show me the phenomena, and I expressed my
willingness to witness such things as Mr. Varley might think
worth showing to me. I have not since been favored by a visit
from Mr. Varley.
“I am now perfectly willing to accept the personal invitation
of Mr. Crookes, should he consider that he can show me
phenomena of the character you describe.
“I am, sir, your obedient servant,
“John Tyndall.”
“G. W. Bennett, Esq.”
Unlike the Seybert Commission, which made a formal report to the
University of Pennsylvania immediately on the completion of its work,
the Committee of the Dialectical Society which was appointed in 1869
did not make any report until 1877 and then only what seems to be a
garbled report of sub-committees. The _Spiritual Magazine_ in 1870
commented on this lack of a report as follows:
“Where is the report of the Dialectical Society? This is the question
which many people are asking, but to which no one seems prepared
to give a satisfactory reply. Has this Report, which was to settle
the question of Spiritualism, only unsettled the Dialectical
Society--causing, as we learn, some of its principal officers and
members to secede from it on finding that the investigations of the
Committee pointed in a different way to what they anticipated, and to
which they had committed themselves? People ask--Have the Committee
come to an opinion on the subject or have they too many opinions?”
The only information I have come in contact with referring to the
Dialectical Committee and its work has been from Spiritualistic
publications, most of them under authorship of Mr. James Burns, and I
copy the following from “The Medium and Daybreak” of November 16, 1877:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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