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
"People have thought my manner and habit very strange indeed regarding
the Truth of Spirit control There has been many things practiced which I
see now was wrong and foolish yet the Truth stills exist that we can
come back and make ourselves felt you ask if I am pleased with what
Thomas [probably Thomas R. Hazard, who was with us at the time] is doing
I am in many respects though there are things best left undone and
unsaid You are perfectly aware of my past feelings also of my desire to
have the truth properly investigated which I feel it will be and the
Truth and Truth only sought after by the Committee I am more concious
now than a time back Henry Seybert"
Another communication in my possession, obtained by a friend from the
same Medium, at another séance, is in an equally good and strikingly
different hand from the former, and reads thus: "Yes both of those
Spirits were there and were plainly seen There was others there that
were imperceptable Alice Cary"
As examples of communications, in irregular scrawls on slips of paper,
in my possession, thrown from behind a screen by a Materialized Spirit,
at a séance of Mr. Keeler, are the following: "Hello folks" "Oh I am a
big slugger" "How is your nose Doc" "I am seeing the sad result of my
work. H. Seibert" [_sic_]. The punctuation and spelling are carefully
copied.
JOSEPH LEIDY.
* * * * *
THE SLADE-ZOELLNER INVESTIGATION.
Perhaps no other investigation of Spiritistic phenomena has exercised so
strong an influence upon the public mind in America, at least, as that
conducted by Professor J.C.F. Zoellner and his colleagues in Leipsic in
1877 and 1878. In November and December of the year 1877 and in May of
1878, Professor Zoellner had a number of séances with Dr. Henry Slade,
the American Medium, in Leipsic, the results of which he has narrated in
his "Scientific Treatises," and which he finds of special interest in
connection with certain physical speculations with which he was before
this time occupied. He declares himself specially authorized to mention
by name as present at some of his investigations his colleagues,
Professors Fechner and Scheibner, of the University of Leipsic, and
Professor Weber of Goettingen. These three, he states, were perfectly
convinced of the reality of the observed facts, and that they were not
to be attributed to imposture or prestidigitation. He also mentions the
presence of Professor Wundt at at least one of the sittings.
The phenomena narrated by Zoellner--the bursting of the wooden screen,
the passages of coins out of closed boxes, the abnormal actions of the
solid wooden rings, the tying of knots in the endless cord, the prints
made upon smoked paper by the feet of four-dimentional beings--all these
have become classic in Spiritistic literature, and the accounts may be
obtained in convenient form collected, arranged and translated into
English by Mr. C.C. Massey, of Lincoln's Inn, London.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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