At the risk of appearing inconsequent by mentioning that first which in point of time came last, we must…
- Date of account
- Published 1887
- Source
- 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
- Reference
- 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 · selected passage 10
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
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
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyAt 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 séance.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis source supplies historical scientific, skeptical or conventional context. Its terminology and conclusions may not reflect current scholarship.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice uses this as an alternative-explanation source, not as an automatic dismissal of testimony. Claims still need to be compared with the actual evidence and current knowledge.
Investigate related details with Anomaly Graph’s account-based search, or read how matching and provenance work.