Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism

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J. Burns, 1874 - Parapsychology - 112 pages

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Page 8 - That certain physical phenomena, such as the movement of material substances and the production of sounds resembling electric discharges, occur under circumstances in which they cannot be explained by any physical law at present known, is a fact of which I am as certain as I am of the most elementary fact in chemistry.
Page 8 - Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of Nature ; and in such things as these experiment is the best test of consistency.
Page 66 - ... living objects, being carried through closed windows and even solid brick walls. The scientific investigator naturally asks that an additional weight (if it be only the thousandth part of a grain) be deposited on one pan of his balance, when the case is locked. And the chemist asks for the thousandth of a grain of arsenic to be carried through the sides of a glass tube in which pure water is hermetically sealed.
Page 111 - ... senseless; she did not move when I took her hand and held the light quite close to her face, but continued quietly breathing. Raising the lamp, I looked around and saw Katie standing close behind Miss Cook. She was robed in flowing white drapery as we had seen her previously during the seance. Holding one of Miss Cook's hands in mine, and still kneeling, I passed the lamp up and down so as to illuminate Katie's whole figure, and satisfy myself thoroughly that I was really looking at the veritable...
Page 109 - Katie was then standing before me clothed in her usual white robes and turban head-dress. I immediately walked into the library up to Miss Cook, Katie stepping aside to allow me to pass. I found Miss Cook had slipped partially off the sofa, and her head was hanging in a very awkward position. I lifted her on to the sofa, and in so doing had satisfactory evidence, in spite of the darkness, that Miss Cook was not attired in the " Katie " costume, but had on her ordinary black velvet dress, and was...
Page 26 - These remarks, however, were written too hastily. It was taken for granted by the writers that the results of my experiments would be in accordance with their preconceptions. "What they really desired was not the truth, but an additional witness in favor of their own foregone conclusion. When they found that the facts which that investigation established could not be made to fit those opinions, why,—' so much the worse for the facts,' — they try to creep out of their own confident recommendations...
Page 86 - ... articles of scientific belief — amongst others, the ubiquity and invariable action of the force of gravitation — that, even now, on recalling the details of what I witnessed, there is an antagonism in my mind between reason, which...

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