Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University of Pennsylvania to Investigate Modern Spiritualism.
by The Seybert Commission.
FOREWORD
Now, at the present time, when the attention of the public is turning towards questions of Psychology and Psychiatry, it is most appropriate that a volume such as the present _Report_ be again placed in the hands of the public. While it cannot be said that the conclusions reached by the Seybert Commission were final, yet material for future investigation was furnished and facts so clearly stated that the reader might form his own conclusions. The purpose and intended scope of the Commission are plainly set forth in the Preliminary sections, and therefore need not be entered upon here.
Of the members composing that Commission but one is now surviving, Dr.
Calvin B. Knerr, who contributed an interesting report on the slate-writing medium, Mrs. Patterson. The sections by the Acting-Chairman, Dr. Horace Howard Furness, on Mediumistic Development, Sealed Letters, and Materialization were the occasion of acrimonious and violent attack on the whole work of the Commission by those periodicals devoted to spiritualism and its propaganda. Age cannot wither the charm of the good humoured satire with which the Acting-Chairman treated these subjects; and it was largely the spirit in which they were thus approached that inspired the intense hostility on the part of the spiritual mediums and their many followers.
It has been epigrammatically said that, Superst.i.tion is, in many cases, the cloak that keeps a man"s religion from dying of cold; possibly the same may be said of Spiritualism and Psychology.
H.H. FURNESS, JR.
February, 1920.
PRELIMINARY REPORT
OF
The Seybert Commission for Investigating Modern Spiritualism.
_To the Trustees of The University of Pennsylvania:_
"The Seybert Commission for Investigating Modern Spiritualism"
respectfully present the following Preliminary Report, and request that the Commission be continued, on the following grounds:
The Commission is composed of men whose days are already filled with duties which cannot be laid aside, and who are able, therefore, to devote but a small portion of their time to these investigations. They are conscious that your honorable body look to them for a due performance of their task, and the only a.s.surance which they can offer of their earnestness and zeal is in thus presenting to you, from time to time, such fragmentary Reports as the following, whereby they trust that successive steps in their progress may be marked. It is no small matter to be able to record any progress in a subject of so wide and deep an interest as the present. It is not too much to say that the farther our investigations extend the more imperative appears the demand for these investigations. The belief in so-called Spiritualism is certainly not decreasing. It has from the first a.s.sumed a religious tone, and now claims to be ranked among the denominational Faiths of the day.
From the outset your Commission have been deeply impressed with the seriousness of their undertaking, and have fully recognized that men eminent in intelligence and attainments yield to Spiritualism an entire credence, and who can fail to stand aside in tender reverence when crushed and bleeding hearts are seen to seek it for consolation and for hope? They beg that nothing which they may say may be interpreted as indicating indifference or levity. Wherever fraud in Spiritualism be found, that it is, and not whatever of truth there may be therein, which is denounced, and all Spiritualists who love the truth will join with us in condemnation of it.
The admission of evidence concerning the so-called Spiritual manifestations has been duly weighed. There is apparent force in the argument that our national histories are founded, accepted and trusted on evidence by no means as direct as that by which, it is claimed, the proofs of Spiritual miracles are accompanied. But it must be remembered that the facts of profane history are vouched for by evidence which is in accord with our present experience; they are in harmony with all that is now going on in the light of day (that history repeats itself has grown into a commonplace), and we are justified in accepting them on testimony, however indirect, which is nevertheless at one with the ordinary course of events. But the phenomena of Spiritualism have no such support; they are commonly regarded as in contravention of the ordinary experience of mankind (in that they are abnormal and extraordinary lies their very attractiveness to many people), and no indirect testimony concerning them can be admitted without the most thorough, the most searching scrutiny. We doubt if any thoughtful Spiritualist could be found to maintain that we should unquestioningly accept all the so-called "facts" with which their annals teem. To sift the evidence of merely half a dozen would require incalculable labor.
Wherefore we decided that, as we shall be held responsible for our conclusions, we must form those conclusions solely on our own observations; without at all imputing untrustworthiness to the testimony of others we can really vouch only for facts which we have ourselves observed.
The late Mr. Henry Seybert during his lifetime was known as an enthusiastic believer in Modern Spiritualism, and shortly before his death presented to The University of Pennsylvania a sum of money sufficient to found a chair of Philosophy, and to the gift added a condition that the University should appoint a Commission to investigate "all systems of Morals, Religion, or Philosophy which a.s.sume to represent the Truth, and particularly of Modern Spiritualism."
A Commission was accordingly appointed, composed as follows: Dr. William Pepper, Dr. Joseph Leidy, Dr. George A. Koenig, Professor Robert Ellis Thompson, Professor George S. Fullerton and Dr. Horace Howard Furness; to whom were afterwards added Mr. Coleman Sellers, Dr. James W. White, Dr. Calvin B. Knerr and Dr. S. Weir Mitch.e.l.l. Of this Commission Dr.
Pepper, as Provost of The University, was, _ex-officio_, Chairman, Dr.
Furness, Acting Chairman, and Professor Fullerton, Secretary.
As a befitting preliminary, at one of our earliest meetings each member in turn expressed his entire freedom from all prejudices against the subject to be investigated, and his readiness to accept any conclusion warranted by facts; one of our number, the Acting Chairman, so far from being unprejudiced confessed to a leaning in favor of the substantial truth of Spiritualism.
We deemed ourselves fortunate at the outset in having as a counselor the late Mr. Thos. R. Hazard, a personal friend of Mr. Seybert, and widely known throughout the land as an uncompromising Spiritualist.
By the advice of Mr. Hazard we addressed ourselves first to the investigation of Independent Slate Writing, and through his aid a seance for this purpose was arranged with a noted Medium, Mrs. S.E. Patterson.
This mode of manifesting Spiritualistic power, as far as it has come under our observation, is, concisely stated, the writing on the concealed surface of a slate which is in contact with a Medium. In the present instance, between two slates fastened together by a hinge on one side and a screw on the other, there was placed a small fragment of slate pencil; when this fragment is bitten off by the Medium, it receives, so Mr. Hazard a.s.sured us, additional Spiritualistic power. As soon as a Spirit has finished writing its communication with the pencil on the inner surface of the slates, the completion of the task is made known by the appearance of the slate pencil on the outside, upon the slates. The slates are always held in concealment under the table, and never has this remarkable pa.s.sage of the pencil through the solid substance of the slate been witnessed by any one, not even by the Medium herself, in all the years during which this wonderful phenomenon has been a matter of daily, almost hourly, experience.
Our first seance was held in the evening at the Medium"s own home. The slates were screwed together with the bit of slate pencil enclosed, and held by the Medium between her open palms, in her lap, under the table.
After waiting an hour and a half without the least response on the slates from the Spirits, the attempt was abandoned for that evening much to the disappointment, not only of us all, but to the chagrin of Mr.
Hazard, who could not understand "what the deuce was in it, seeing that the Medium was one of the very best in the world, and on the preceding evening, when he was all alone with her, the messages from the spirit of Henry Seybert came thick and fast."
No better success attended our second seance with this Medium, although we waited patiently an hour and twenty minutes, while the slates were in the Medium"s lap.
By the advice of the Medium, in order to eliminate any possible antagonism, we divided our numbers, and only one or two of us at a time sat with her. On one occasion writing did appear on the slates, after the slates had been held by both hands of the Medium for a long time in concealment under the table, but to neither of the two sitters did the screw appear to be by any means as tightly fastened after the writing as before; nor did the writing of two or three illegible words seem beyond the resources of very humble legerdemain; in fact, no legerdemain was needed, after a surrept.i.tious loosening of the screw which, considering the state of the frame of the slate, could have been readily effected.
From some cause or other the atmosphere of Philadelphia is not favorable to this mode of Spiritual manifestation. With the exception of the Medium just alluded to, not a single Professional Independent Slate Writing Medium was known to us at that time in this city, nor is there one resident here even at this present writing, as far as we know.
We were, therefore, obliged to send for one to New York. With this Medium, Dr. Henry Slade, we had a number of sittings, and, however wonderful may have been the manifestations of his Mediumship in the past, or elsewhere, we were forced to the conclusion that the character of those which pa.s.sed under our observation was fraudulent throughout.
There was really no need of any elaborate method of investigation; close observation was all that was required.
At the risk of appearing inconsequent by mentioning that first which in point of time came last, we must premise that in our investigations with this Medium we early discovered the character of the writing to be twofold, and the difference between the two styles to be striking. In one case the communication written on the slate by the Spirits was general in its tone, legible in its chirography, and usually covered much of the surface of the slate, punctuation being attended to, the _i"s_ dotted, and the _t"s_ crossed. In the second, when the communication was in answer to a question addressed to a Spirit the writing was clumsy, rude, scarcely legible, abrupt in terms, and sometimes very vague in substance. In short, one bore the marks of deliberation and the other of haste. This difference we found to be due to the different conditions under which the communications were written.
The long messages are prepared by the Medium before the seance. The short ones, answers to questions asked during the seance, are written under the table with what skill practice can confer.
With this knowledge, it is clear that the investigator has to deal with a simple question of legerdemain. The slate, with its message already written, must in some way be subst.i.tuted for one which the sitter knows to be clean. The short answers must be written under trying circ.u.mstances, out of sight, under the table, with all motions of the arm or hand concealed. It is useless to attempt to limit the methods whereby these two objects may be attained. All that we can do is to describe the processes which we distinctly saw this Medium adopt.
In its simplest form (and one which any person can try with astonishing results upon an artless, unsuspicious sitter), a slate, on which, before the sitter"s visit, a message has been written, is lying face downward on the table when the seance begins. There are other slates on an adjoining table within easy reach of the Medium. In order that the Medium may be brought into Spiritual relationship with the sitters, contact with the Medium is necessary, and the sitters are therefore requested to place their hands, palms downward, in the middle of the table; on these hands the Medium places his own and the seance begins.
Before long, the presence of Spiritual power becomes manifest by raps on the table, or by vibratory movements of the table, more or less violent, and by spasmodic jerkings or twitching of the Medium"s arms or body.
When sufficient Spiritual power has been generated, the Medium takes up the slate, and, still controlling with his left hand the hands of his sitters, places on it a minute fragment of slate pencil. No offer is made to show both sides (the prepared message is on the hidden side), the side in full view is perfectly clean, and it is on that side that the Spirits are to write with the slate pencil; there is no need of showing the other side. With his right hand the Medium holds the slate under the edge of the table, barely concealing it thereunder, and drawing it forth every few seconds to see if any writing has appeared.
After waiting in vain for five or ten minutes, the Medium"s patience becomes exhausted, and he reaches for another slate from the table close behind him, and, ostentatiously washing both sides of it, lays it on the table in front of him (still controlling with his left hand the hands of his sitters), and removes the pencil from the first slate to the second, and on top of the second so places the first slate that the prepared message is underneath, on the inside and next to the other slate. The trick is done. All that now remains for the Medium to do is to hold the two slates under the table for awhile, or rest them on the shoulder close to the ear of the sitter on the Medium"s right, and, by scratching with the finger nail on the frame of the slate, to imitate the writing by the Spirits with the enclosed pencil. When there are two or more sitters it is only the one on the right of the Medium who is privileged to hear the writing. To apply the slate to the ear of any other would disclose the way in which the sound of the writing is counterfeited. To him, therefore, who sits on the Medium"s left, so that the Medium"s hand, while holding the slates on the shoulder of the sitter on the right, is sharply outlined against the light, the motions of the Medium"s fingers while the sound of writing is imitated by him may be distinctly seen.
By such elementary tricks of legerdemain as these are guileless, honest folk deceived.
Dr. Slade prefers to have only two sitters at a time, one on his right and one opposite. The fourth side of the table he prefers to have unoccupied; his manipulations of the slate can be from that side more readily observed; moreover, strange Spiritual antics may be there manifested, such as upsetting chairs which happen to be there, making slates appear above the edge of the table, etc. These manifestations are executed by the Medium"s foot, which, on one occasion, was distinctly seen before it had time to get back into its slipper by one of our number, who stooped very quickly to pick up a slate which had accidentally fallen to the floor while the Spirits were trying to put it into the lap of one of the sitters.
At the first two seances an ordinary wooden table was used belonging to the hotel where Dr. Slade lodged. At the third seance a similar but larger table was used, somewhat the worse for wear, and the joints of its leaves were far from fitting close. Every crack, however, and every c.h.i.n.k had been carefully filled up with paper to prevent, so the Medium said, "the electricity from flowing through."
The method of producing the long message which opened the seance has been described above. Whenever we received other long messages, written with some care and more or less filling the side of the slate, the agency employed was adroit subst.i.tution, generally effected when the Medium supposed that the attention of his sitters was engrossed with an answer just received to a question addressed to the Spirits. Prepared slates resting against the leg of the table behind him were subst.i.tuted for those which but a moment before he had ostentatiously washed on both sides and laid on the table in front of him. The handwriting of these long messages bore an unmistakable similarity to the Medium"s own.
When a question is written on the slate by a sitter, equal dexterity to that used in subst.i.tuting the prepared slate, or even greater, is demanded of the Medium, in reading the question and in writing the answer.
The question is written by the sitter out of sight of the Medium, to whom the slate, face downward, is handed over and a piece of pencil placed on it.
The task now before the Medium is first to secure the fragment of pencil and to hold it while the slate is surrept.i.tiously turned over and the question read, then the slate is turned back again and the answer written.
Every step in the process we have distinctly seen. In order to seize the fragment of pencil without awakening suspicion, while holding the slate under the table, the slate is constantly brought out to see whether or not the Spirits have written an answer. By this manoeuvre a double end is attained: First, it creates an atmosphere of expectation, and the sitters grow accustomed to a good deal of motion in the Medium"s arm that holds the slate; and secondly, by these repeated motions the pencil (which, having been cut out from a slate pencil enclosed in wood, is square, and does not roll about awkwardly), is moved by the successive jerks toward the hand which holds the slate, and is gradually brought up to within grasping distance. The forefinger is then pa.s.sed over the frame of the slate, and it and the thumb seize and hold the pencil, and under cover of some violent convulsive spasms the slate is turned over and the question read. At this point it is that the Medium shows his nerve: it is the critical instant, the only one when his eyes are not fastened on his visitors. On one occasion, when the question was written somewhat illegibly in a back hand, with a very light stroke, and close to the upper edge of the slate, the Medium had to look at it three several times before he could make it out.
After reading the question, it may be noticed that Dr. Slade winks three or four times rapidly; this may have been partly to veil from his visitors the fact that he had been looking intently downward, and partly through mental abstraction in devising an answer. He evidently breathes freer when this crisis is past.
Convulsive spasms attend the reversing of the slate, which is then generally held between his knees; only once did we note that he placed it _on_ his knees, and once we believed that he supported it by pressing it against the leg of the table. The answer is written without looking at the slate, in a coa.r.s.e, large, sprawling hand, at times scarcely legible. While writing he keeps his eyes steadily fixed on his visitors, and generally rests a minute or two after it is finished. Presently the slate is held near the edge of the table and close up to it, and a tremulous motion imparted to it suggests that Spiritual power is then at work and that the writing is in progress.
Dr. Slade performed several little tricks which he imputed to Spiritual agency, but which were almost puerile in the simplicity of their legerdemain, and which have been repeated with perfect success by one of our number; such as tossing a slate pencil on and sometimes over the table from a slate held apparently under the table, or the playing of an accordion when held with one hand under the table. This Medium"s fingers are unusually long and strong, and the accordion, being quite small and with only four bellows folds, can be readily manipulated with but one hand, and when under the table is held by the keys.