Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University of Pennsylvania to Investigate Modern Spiritualism: In Accordance with the Request of the Late Henry SeybertUniversity of Pennsylvania. Seybert Commission for Investigating Modern Spiritualism
Religion
Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University of Pennsylvania to Investigate Modern Spiritualism: In Accordance with the Request of the Late Henry Seybert
University of Pennsylvania. Seybert Commission for Investigating Modern Spiritualism
Parapsychology -- Investigation; Spiritualism
Arabic numerals on my watch, which happen to be unusually large and
pronounced. Unquestionably Spiritualists will be at no loss to explain
this puzzle; possibly they would say that I have here unconsciously
given one of the very best of proofs of the reality and genuineness of
Materialization, and that my unbelief acts on the sensitive, evanescent
features of the Spirit like a chemical reagent, and that--but it is not
worth while to weaken by anticipation their solacing arguments.
In any statement of this problem we should bear in mind all the
attending circumstances: the darkened room; the music; the singing; the
pervading hush of expectation; the intensely concentrated attention; the
strained gaze at the dark Cabinet and at its white robed apparitions;
and finally, the presence of a number of sympathizing believers.
There is another fact about these séances which I think cannot fail to
impress even the most casual observer, and this is the attractive charms
which the Cabinet seems to possess for the aboriginal Indian. This child
of nature appears to materialize with remarkable facility, and, having
apparently doffed his characteristic phlegm in the happy hunting
grounds, enters with extreme zest on the lighter gambols which sometimes
enliven the sombre monotony of a séance. Almost every Medium keeps an
Indian 'brave' in her cohort of Spirits; in fact, there is no Cabinet,
howe'er so ill attended, but has some Indian there. It is strange, too,
that, as far as I know, departed black men, who might be supposed to be
quite as unsophisticated as departed red men, have hitherto developed
no such materializing proclivities. It is, perhaps, even more strange
that while, in my experience, Italian Spirits neither understand nor
speak Italian, and French Spirits can neither comprehend nor talk
French, and German Spirits remain invincibly dumb in German, it is
reserved to Indian 'braves' to be glibly and fluently voluble in the
explosive gutturals of their own well-known tongue.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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