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
Of these phenomena themselves, verification is, at this late date,
manifestly out of the question. The only published accounts are those
made by Zoellner, and in the absence of notes made at the time, all
descriptions of phenomena given now by the other persons present would
be valueless, except as indicating the impression made upon them at the
time by the occurrences.
But, though the phenomena themselves cannot be satisfactorily sifted,
the men who were engaged in the investigation are, with the exception of
Zoellner himself, still living, and it occurred to me when in Germany
during the past summer, that a conference with each of these men, and an
inquiry into their qualifications for making such an investigation into
the phenomena of Spiritism, might be of no small value. These men are:
_William Wundt_, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Leipsic;
_Gustav Theodore Fechner_, now Professor Emeritus of Physics in the
University of Leipsic; _W. Scheibner_, Professor of Mathematics in the
University of Leipsic; and _Wilhelm Weber_, Professor Emeritus of
Physics in the University of Goettingen--all of them men of eminence in
their respective lines of scholarship.
On Saturday, June 19th, I called upon Professor Wundt at his home in
Leipsic; with respect to the investigation of 1877-78 he gave me the
following information, which I noted down during my conversation with
him, asking him to repeat the points mentioned as I noted them, so as to
avoid any error or misunderstanding, and which I copied out, with merely
verbal changes, two days later.
Professor Wundt said:
1. That at the séances at which he himself was present (and he was
present at two or three of them) the conditions of observation were very
unsatisfactory. All hands had to be kept on the table, and no one was
allowed to look under it.
2. That all that he saw done looked as if it might have been done by
jugglery.
3. That the writing on slates was very suspicious--the German was bad,
just such German as Slade spoke.
4. That Professor Weber, who was present at the sittings, was a very old
man at the time, and presumably not an acute observer.
5. That Professor Fechner, another of those present, was afflicted with
an incipient cataract, and could see very little.
6. That Professor Zoellner himself was at the time decidedly not in his
right mind; his abnormal mental condition being clearly indicated in his
letters and in his intercourse with his family.
7. That he (Professor Wundt) had not a high respect for the scientific
judgment of Professor Ulrici, of Halle, who had been so much impressed
by the report made by Professor Zoellner; Professor Ulrici he thought
literary and poetical, but not scientific.
It will be seen that some of the points mentioned by Professor Wundt are
suggestive; but I will postpone an examination of his statements, as of
those of each of the others, until they have all been given and can be
compared.
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