Henry Seybert. Preliminary Report of the Comission Appointed by the University of Pennsylvania to Investigate Modern Spiritualism. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company , 1887.
(19 x 15 cm) pp. 159. Bound in olive publisher's cloth with title in gilt on front cover and spine. Flyleaves and pastedowns in dark blue. Ex-library with only card catalogue pouch adhered to front pastedown and rubber stamp 1083, else unmarked. Interior crisp and clean. Exterior in very good shape as well with some shelfware to corners, but otherwise crisp. Front fly leaf has a small rip in the the middle. Overall VERY GOOD condition.
The Seybert Commission was an investigation undertaken by the University of Pennsylvania in 1883 following the request of Henry Seybert to examine whether scientific evidence could prove the existence of a spirit world. A commission of Penn faculty—including physicians, scientists, philosophers, and scholars—spent four years interviewing mediums, attending séances, collecting advertisements and correspondence, and carefully documenting alleged supernatural phenomena during the height of the American Spiritualist movement. The commission approached the subject as a serious academic inquiry, reflecting both the popularity of spiritualism after the Civil War and the university's commitment to fulfilling Seybert's conditions. In its 1887 preliminary report, represented by this publication, however, the investigators concluded that they had found no convincing evidence that mediums could communicate with the dead, and the commission was subsequently dissolved without issuing a final report.