art of the
spiritual mediums and their many followers.

It has been epigrammatically said that, Superstition is, in many cases,
the cloak that keeps a man's religion from dying of cold; possibly the
same may be said of Spiritualism and Psychology.

H.H. FURNESS, JR.

February, 1920.

PRELIMINARY REPORT

OF

The Seybert Commission for Investigating Modern Spiritualism.

_To the Trustees of The University of Pennsylvania:_

'The Seybert Commission for Investigating Modern Spiritualism'
respectfully present the following Preliminary Report, and request that
the Commission be continued, on the following grounds:

The Commission is composed of men whose days are already filled with
duties which cannot be laid aside, and who are able, therefore, to
devote but a small portion of their time to these investigations. They
are conscious that your honorable body look to them for a due
performance of their task, and the only assurance which they can offer
of their earnestness and zeal is in thus presenting to you, from time to
time, such fragmentary Reports as the following, whereby they trust that
successive steps in their progress may be marked. It is no small matter
to be able to record any progress in a subject of so wide and deep an
interest as the present. It is not too much to say that the farther our
investigations extend the more imperative appears the demand for these
investigations. The belief in so-called Spiritualism is certainly not
decreasing. It has from the first assumed a religious tone, and now
claims to be ranked among the denominational Faiths of the day.

From the outset your Commission have been deeply impressed with the
seriousness of their undertaking, and have fully recognized that men
eminent in intelligence and attainments yield to Spiritualism an entire
credence, and who can fail to stand aside in tender reverence when
crushed and bleeding hearts are seen to seek it for consolation and for
hope? They beg that nothing which they may say may be interpreted as
indicating indifference or levity. Wherever fraud in Spiritualism be
found, that it is, and not whatever of truth there may be therein, which
is denounced, and all Spiritualists who love the truth will join with us
in condemnation of it.

The admission of evidence concerning the so-called Spiritual
manifestations has been duly weighed. There is apparent force in the
argument that our national histories are founded, accepted and t