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Whether these answers be ascribed to Spirits, or to what is termed clairvoyance, they would be none the less…

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 30
Rights
public_domain
Language
English
Record updated
2026-08-24

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Record summary

Whether these answers be ascribed to Spirits, or to what is termed clairvoyance, they would be none the less true or false if delivered orally by the Medium; all that we are sure of is that the writing down of these communications, be their substance what it may, is performed in a manner so closely resembling fraud as …

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 only

Whether these answers be ascribed to Spirits, or to what is termed clairvoyance, they would be none the less true or false if delivered orally by the Medium; all that we are sure of is that the writing down of these communications, be their substance what it may, is performed in a manner so closely resembling fraud as to be indistinguishable from it. It would be a mere matter of opinion that all Independent Slate Writing is fraudulent; what is not a matter of opinion is the conviction, which we have unanimously reached as a Commission, of its non-spiritual character in every instance that has come before us.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This source supplies historical scientific, skeptical or conventional context. Its terminology and conclusions may not reflect current scholarship.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

Lattice 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.

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