The Problems of Psychical Research: Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the SupernormalCarrington, Hereward
Science
The Problems of Psychical Research: Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal
Carrington, Hereward
Parapsychology
Here is the signed statement I promised you, and the better print
of the cross photo. The others who were present at the experiments
are not where I can reach them at present, but the five whose
signatures are appended to the accompanying statement are the
best-known of the eight who were present,--men whose testimony in a
court of law would be accepted without question. Dr. Frank Collins
is, or was, President of the Osteopaths' Association, a
Spiritualist, student of Astrology and mystical subjects, and a
member of the Council of the California Psychical Research Society.
Dr. J. C. Anthony is a well and favorably known physician, who has
practised here for many years, also a member of our Council. Dr.
Cecil E. Nixon is a Dentist, best known as a Magician, and as the
inventor of "Isis," a wonderful automaton which plays any tune you
request of her on the zither. Mr. Henry Huppert is one of the
partners in the Preston-Huppert X-Ray Laboratory, a man with
scientific training and a student of the Occult.
Such a thing as substitution by the subject of another plate for
the one we suspended before him was out of the question for two
reasons. First, he was not left alone. Second, he did not know in
advance just what was to be the nature of our experiment. When Mr.
Huppert broke the seal on the box of plates, in the presence of the
Committee of four, in the dark room, and selected one at random
from the centre of the box, and enclosed it in the two envelopes,
he not only sealed the envelopes but marked the envelopes, so that
he would know if they had been tampered with. They could not have
been opened without destroying these marks. Furthermore, in the
room where the experiment was conducted, there was an ordinary
electric light burning, and no substitution could have been made
without affecting the plate. It could not have been possible that
the subject, being previously unaware of the exact nature of the
contemplated experiment, could have provided himself with plates of
the same size and envelopes of two colours and of identically the
same paper as those used in the X-Ray Laboratory. If anything
happened to the plate it happened _through_ the paper of the
envelopes. But, as I have said, one of the committee was in the
room during the whole experiment. The sole possibility of fraud was
for the subject to have come prepared with a cross painted with
radio-active paint, and to have held this against the envelopes
whilst the Committee was off its guard. But the character of the
subject is sufficient guarantee to all of us that such was not the
case. I admit that to those who do not know him, this would furnish
no guarantee, and that for this reason we should have taken even
more stringent precautions. Had we known that such a result was to
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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