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HPB-SB-3-101: Difference between revisions
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| volume = 3 | | volume = 3 | ||
| page =101 | | page =101 | ||
| image = SB-03-101.jpg | | image = SB-03-101.jpg | ||
| notes = | | notes = | ||
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| publication date = 1876 | | publication date = 1876 | ||
| original date = | | original date = | ||
| notes = Protest against conclusion of scientific | | notes = Protest against conclusion of the scientific Commission (headed by D.I. Mendeleev) on spiritualism phenomena, signed by 130 persons. In Russian, without a title. Published in ''St. Petersburg News'' (С.-Петербургскiя Вҍдомости). Translated from Russian by S. Lipsky. | ||
| categories = Russian | | categories = Text in Russian | ||
}} | }} | ||
... | The document printed below is delivered to us with the following letter: | ||
Mr. Editor, | |||
On March 25th the scientific Commission formed to investigate psychic phenomena made its report public and a month later on April 24th and 25th Professor Mendeleev delivered two lectures on Spiritism. For lack of approving reviews of the Commission, Mr. Mendeleev himself took the trouble to say a laudatory word about its activities. During the last lecture he expressed the thought, that in the report of the Commission the truth speaks with irresistible force, and society, illumined by it, involuntarily bowed before the verdict of science. But the honourable lecturer is mistaken. The attached protest, signed by one hundred and thirty persons, testifies that in our society, contrary to the opinion of Mr. Mendeleev, there are quite a few people who distinguish science from the Commission.}} | |||
The groundlessness of the unsubstantiated conclusions of the latter became obvious for our press as well. Here is another fact, pointing to this. In the April issue of "Otechestvennye Zapiski", which treats Spiritism with Olympic (and rather amusing) arrogance, they admit that the Physical Society Commission, which was set to expose and suppress Spiritism, has not reached the desired result at all. According to a fair comment of the above mentioned journal, the Commission vainly tries to conceal its real police-judicial character and to give itself a scholarly flavor. Its purpose was to condemn "heresy" and not to conduct a scientific research, which it did not intend to do. That is why "Otechestvennye Zapiski" calls the members of the Commission "modern fathers of orthodox science", who, being zealous for the right science, resolved to establish a council of orthodox scientists to judge the heretical teaching, confident that no one would dare to doubt the infallibility of their biased, unfounded sentence. | |||
We think that this review, which comes from the camp of ardent opponents of Spiritism, in the best possible way reflects the dominant opinion about the Commission's supposed "research". | |||
{{Style P-Signature|V. Markov}} | |||
<center>'''Protest against the conclusions of the Commission for the study of mediumism.'''</center> | |||
The scientific Commission, formed to examine mediumistic phenomena, had the purpose – as one can judge from the report by Mr. Mendeleev, published in "Golos" (No. 137, 1875) – to "accurately examine" these phenomena and through this "render a considerable service to everyone". From the public lecture of Mr. Mendeleev we learned that the immediate subject of the Commission's research were the following mediumistic phenomena: movements of inanimate objects when touched and when not touched by hands; objects rising into the air; objects changing their weight; movements of objects and sounds in them having meaningfulness, having the character of conversations or answers, which the Commission called ''dialogic phenomena''; writing by inanimate objects or ''psychographic phenomena''; finally, formation and appearance of individual parts of the human body or even complete figures, which the Commission called ''mediumistic-plastic'' ''phenomena. ''The Commission promised to devote at least 40 sessions to the study of these phenomena. Now, in its report of March 21<sup>st</sup>, ("Golos" No. 85, 1876) the Commission announced that its investigation was completed and that "its aim was achieved" and that it unanimously came to the conclusion that "the spiritualistic phenomena originate from unconscious movements or from conscious deception, and the doctrine of Spiritism is a superstition”. Such is the verdict of the Commission – as can be seen from its report – after eight séances, of which during the first four no mediumistic phenomena occurred, and during the last four the Commission saw several movements of the table and heard several knocks. But where are the Commission's experiments with movements of objects without hands touching them, experiments with changes in the weight of objects, experiments with phenomena that are dialogic, psychographic, mediumistic-plastic? From that limited research program, which the Commission had set itself, it apparently did not fulfill even the fourth part, but it did touch, without any ground, the Spiritism "doctrine", which is the question that was not included in its program at all. We, the undersigned, consider it our duty to declare that through such a superficial and hasty attitude to the subject of its research the Commission has remained far from fulfilling the task that it assigned to itself. It evidently has not gathered sufficient data either to admit the existence of mediumistic phenomena or to reject them. Having limited its investigation to eight séances, the Commission had no valid grounds for declaring its investigation complete; it had even less right to pronounce a final verdict on the basis of these eight sessions. Having started the research in the name of interests of a certain part of society, the Commission has not satisfied these interests at all; it has left the society in its prior bewilderment concerning the mediumistic phenomena – phenomena which have been testified by so many reliable persons. We, the undersigned, consider ourselves, therefore, in a right to express the hope that the examination of mediumistic phenomena declared in the name of science will be completed, according to the dignity and requirements of science – if not by those who have already made their judgment, even about what they have not seen, then by others – after a longer and more detailed research. Only by such an investigation can "a considerable service to everyone" really be rendered. | |||
The original is signed by: V. S. Avdakov, Prince Bagration, I. Balashov, A. Bardsky, V. Barteneva, A. Barykova, N. Bakhmetyev, R. Bashmakova, L. Bonve, M. Borisova, D. Bunyakovskaya, A. Vasilchikova, V. Vixenstein, Prince Ev. Wittgenstein, P. Weymarn, K. Witte, E. Vlasova, Princess Golitsina-Prozorovskaya, M. Gredyakina, N. Gredyakin, Yu. Gren, D. Grigorovich, L. Danilov, I. Danilov, Z. Durova, E. Evreinova, N. Zhoga, Baron A. Zhomini, A. Zinoviev, A. Zinovieva, D. Zinoviev, E. Zagrafo, E. Ivanova, G. Ignatyev, F. Kalinina, N. Kalinin, T. Kalinin, S. Kislinskaya, V. Kishkin, F. Klimov, Count Komarovsky, Count A. Komarovsky, E. Konstanten, V. Kresenko, V. Kruse, Prince A. Kurakin, Prince B. Kurakin, Prince M. Kurtsevich, E. Lavrova, E. Lancere, I. Lapshin, F. Levshin, N. Lvov, N. Leskov, A. Makarevsky, N. Makarevskaya, E. Malokhovets, F. Malokhovets, S. Manukhin, V. Markov, P. Marchenko, N. Matveev, P. May, Baron Meyendorf, H. Meyer, A. Miller, P.P. Miller, A.A. Moiseeva, N.A. Moiseev, G. Montandre, S. N. Moskalev, Ar. Ober, Princess N. Obolenskaya, Prince O. Obolensky, P. Orlov, Prince Paskevich, Princess Paskevich, T. Passek, P. Pelchov, I. K. Pelzer, K. F. Pirvits, F. F. Pirvits, E. A. Pirgov, A. V. Polovtsev, A. I. Polubinsky, J. B. Prezhentsov, V. Pribytkova, E. Pribytkova, V. Pribytkov, V. Rossolovsky, I. Ryumin, A. P. Salomon, V. I. Safronov, A. V. Semenova, K. A. Semenov, A. Serebryakov, N. Skorodumov, E. Skropotova, Yu. Smolenskaya, A. Starozhevsky, A. Stepanova, E. Stoletov, Countess Maria B. Stroganova, Count Grigory S. Stroganov, Prince A. Suvorov, Prince K. Suvorov, G. Tatishchev, I. Timashevsky, A. I. Tokmachev, Countess A. Tolstaya, F. Toman, S. Torneus, Prince A. Trubetskoy, A. Tutkovsky, E. Tyminskaya, Prince A. Urusov, E. Chelischeva, M. Chelischev, A. Chelovsky, Vladimir Chuyko, N. Chuyko, V. Shago, Prince A. Shakhovsky, I. O. Schmidt, Prince A. Scherbatov, N. Scherbachev, L. Junger. | |||
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