Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University of Pennsylvania to Investigate Mod | Page 9

The difficulty attending the investigation of this mode of Spiritualistic manifestation is increased by the fact, familiar to physiologists, that sounds of varying intensity may be produced in almost any portion of the human body by voluntary muscular action. To determine the exact location of this muscular activity is at times a matter of delicacy.
What we can say, thus far, with assurance is that, in the cases which have come under our observation, the theory of the purely physiological origin of the sounds has been sustained by the fact that the Mediums were invariably, and confessedly, cognizant of the rappings whenever they occurred, and could at once detect any spurious rappings, however exact and indistinguishable to all other ears might be the imitation. For the details of the investigation which guided us to this conclusion we refer to the Appendix.
There are among Mediums certain Specialists, whose alleged Spiritual manifestations we have endeavoured to investigate, not always successfully, as, for instance, in the case of Mr. W.M. Keeler, through whose Mediumship 'Spiritual Photographs' are produced. The 'conditions' which this Medium demanded would have made any attempt at investigation a mere waste of time, and his terms of remuneration were, in addition, as we have before mentioned, prohibitory and suggestive of unwillingness to come before the Commission. In these days of 'Composite Photography' it is worse than childish to claim a Spiritual source for results which can be obtained at any time by any tyro in the art. Mr. Keeler's letter will be found in the Appendix.
We were more successful in procuring a s��ance with Mr. Keeler's brother, whose Mediumship manifests itself by the materialization of a right hand behind a low screen, in front of which the Medium sits, with his face alone visible, his entire person being concealed by black muslin. The screen is stretched across a corner of a room to about the height of the back of the Medium's head, as he sits in front of it. The lights are lowered, and in a few minutes various instruments, musical and otherwise, which had been previously placed on a small table in the corner enclosed by the screen, are heard to sound, a drum is beaten, a guitar is played, etc. The music is interspersed with flashes of hand darting and waving above the screen to the right of the Medium. The hand, when shaken, was found to be a right one. As a proof that the hand is Spiritual and not that of the Medium, the latter requests one of the visitors at the s��ance to sit beside him on his right, and also to be covered to the chin with the same black muslin under which all the Medium, except his head, is concealed. This visitor's bare left forearm is grasped by the Medium, as he says, with both his hands, and this pressure of the Medium's two hands on the visitor's arm is never relaxed, as the visitor readily testifies. The proof seems, therefore, conclusive that the hand which plays the instruments behind the screen is not the Medium's, and hence must be a materialized Spirit. The trick is simple and highly deceptive, as any one can prove for himself by requesting a blindfolded friend to bare the left arm to the elbow, then let the experimenter grasp this bared arm, near the wrist, with the third and fourth fingers of his left hand, closing them around it tightly, and as he does so, asking the owner of the arm to note that this is his left hand, then let the experimenter, without relaxing this hold, stretch the remaining fingers and thumb up the arm as far as he can, and while clasping it with his thumb and forefinger, remark that this second pressure comes from his other hand. The conviction is complete in the mind of the blindfolded friend that he feels the grasp of two hands, whereas only the left hand of the experimenter has grasped his arm, and the right hand is free to beat a drum or play a zither. After this test, which is patent to all, we can dismiss the theory of a Spiritual origin of the hand behind Mr. Keeler's screen. To forestall the discovery by Mr. Keeler's companion of this trick, and to prevent its detection by simply feeling with his free right hand after the suppositious hands of the Medium, which are grasping his left forearm, a second visitor is requested to share the discomfort of the muslin envelope, and to sit on the right of the first visitor and to hold the latter's truant right hand with his left hand, while his right is exposed to view outside the curtain. Again we refer to the Appendix for the minutes of our meeting.
We had a s��ance also