Report on Spiritualism of the Committee of the London Dialectical Society: Together with the Evidence, Oral and Written, and a Selection from the CorrespondenceLongmans, Green, Reader and Dyer, 1871 - 412 pages Report of a committee made up of prominent individuals from religious, medical and scientific fields, appointed n 1869 to investigate spiritual phenomena in Europe and America. Members included Thomas Huxley, Alfred Wallace, Anna Blackwell, George Henry Lewes and T. Adolphus Trollope |
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A. R. Wallace accordion action Adare afterwards ANNA BLACKWELL answer appeared asked atoms believe Bergheim body cause cerebrum chair Chairman character Charles Bradlaugh Committee communication conscious Davenport Brothers delusion Dialectical Society Edmunds evidence existence experience facts feet floor fluidic force friends Friswell GEORGE HENRY LEWES George's Hall given Guppy hand heard held Home human imposture inches inquiry intelligence investigation lady letter light magnetic Master of Lindsay material matter medium mediumship members present mental mind minutes moved movements nature never observed occasion occurred paper pencil persons present pheno physical planet Port Glasgow produced proved Psychic element question racter raps remarkable reply result sceptical scientific séance seen sitting soul sounds spirit spiritual phenomena Spiritualists Sub-committee substances supernatural tilted tion took touched trance truth unconscious various Varley witnessed writing
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Page 245 - Dear Sir, — I have the pleasure to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 5th instant, (by a curious coincidence dated on my birthday.) " All that I and my wife know of the facts of Spiritualism is contained in my essay on 'Apparitions;' and my wife's book entitled
Page 229 - But supposing the phenomena to be genuine — they do not interest me. If any body would endow me with the faculty of listening to the chatter of old women and curates in the nearest cathedral town, I should decline the privilege, having better things to do. " And if the folk in the spiritual world do not talk more wisely and sensibly than their friends report them to do, I put them in the same category.
Page vi - to investigate the Phenomena alleged to be Spiritual Manifestations, and to report thereon.
Page 7 - Sub-committee have held forty meetings for the purpose of experiment and test. All of these meetings were held at the private residences of members of the Committee, purposely to preclude the possibility of pre-arranged mechanism or contrivance. The furniture of the room in which the experiments were conducted was on every occasion its accustomed furniture. The tables were in all cases heavy dining tables, requiring a strong effort to move them.
Page 229 - Spiritualism ;' and for two reasons. In the first place, I have no time for such an inquiry, which would involve much trouble and (unless it were unlike all inquiries of that kind I have known) much annoyance. In the second place, I take no interest in the subject. The only case of
Page 207 - ... Home, in a trance, elongated eleven inches. I measured him standing up against the wall, and marked the place; not being satisfied with that, I put him in the middle of the room, and placed a candle in front of him, so as to throw a shadow on the wall, which I also marked. When he awoke I measured him again in his natural size, both directly and by the shadow, and the results were equal. I can swear that he was not off the ground or standing on tiptoe, as I had full view of his feet, and moreover,...
Page 349 - ... and others not yet explained by science, to be impossible, is one who speaks without knowing what he is talking about, and also any man accustomed, by his professional avocations, to scientific...
Page 349 - ... is one who speaks without knowing what he is talking about; and also any man accustomed, by his professional avocations, to scientific observation — provided that his mind be not biased by preconceived opinions, nor his mental vision blinded by that opposite kind of illusion, unhappily too common in the learned world, which consists in imagining that the laws of Nature are already known to us, and that everything which appears to overstep the limit of our present formulas is impossible —...
Page 274 - ... anew during her absence, and in such manner as exhibits almost at one view all their mutual relations, dependences and consequences — which shows that our organs do not stand idle the moment we cease to employ them, but continue the motions we put into them after they have gone out of sight, thereby working themselves to a glibness and smoothness, and falling into a more regular and orderly posture than we could have placed them with all our skill and industry.
Page 207 - On another occasion I saw Mr. Home, in a trance, elongated eleven inches. I measured him standing up against the wall, and marked the place; not being satisfied with that, I put him in the middle of the room and placed a candle in front of him, so as to throw a shadow on the wall, which I also marked. When he awoke I measured him again in his natural size, both directly and by the shadow, and the results were equal. I can swear that he was not off the ground or standing on tiptoe, as I had full view...