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Updated: May 7, 2025
Professor Fechner referred me to Professors Scheibner and Weber for information, saying that these two were present at most of the sittings.
Thus it would appear that of the four eminent men whose names have made famous the investigation, there is reason to believe one, Zoellner, was of unsound mind at the time, and anxious for experimental verification of an already accepted hypothesis; another, Fechner, was partly blind, and believed because of Zoellner's observations; a third, Scheibner, was also afflicted with defective vision, and not entirely satisfied in his own mind as to the phenomena; and a fourth, Weber, was advanced in age, and did not even recognize the disabilities of his associates.
To Professor Scheibner, especially, my thanks are due for the trouble he has taken in helping me to make my notes exact and truthful. In 1884 rumors reached me of remarkable Spiritual communications from a revered friend and relative, Dr. Hering.
Here the attitude of the four men is not correctly described, and Professor Zoellner's statement does them injustice, as Professor Scheibner remarked. At least two of the men were merely inclined to accept the facts, and to these two the words "perfectly convinced" will not apply.
Professor Scheibner thinks that the mental disturbance under which Zoellner suffered later, might be regarded as, at this time, incipient. He became more and more given to fixing his attention on a few ideas, and incapable of seeing what was against them. Towards the last he was passionate when criticized.
Professor Zoellner's book, said Professor Scheibner, would create the impression that Weber and Fechner and he agreed with Zoellner throughout in his opinion of the phenomena "and their interpretation;" but this, he said, is not the case. HALLE a.S., July 5th, 1886. So much for the information given by Professor Scheibner.
Slade, and, as I am expressly authorized to mention, in the presence of my friends and colleagues, Professor Fechner, Professor Wilhelm Weber, the celebrated electrician from Goettingen, and Herr Scheibner, Professor of Mathematics in the University of Leipsic, who are perfectly convinced of the reality of the observed facts, altogether excluding imposture or prestidigitation."
The opinion of Wundt, as of a man whose profession would not permit him to speak hastily upon this topic, I would regard as of special value; but if we rule that out upon the ground that Wundt was not impressed by the investigation, and might naturally be inclined to underrate Zoellner, who was, we have left the opinions of Fechner and Scheibner, both Zoellner's colleagues at Leipsic, both particular friends of Zoellner, and both inclined to agree with him as to the reality of the facts he describes.
He declares himself specially authorized to mention by name as present at some of his investigations his colleagues, Professors Fechner and Scheibner, of the University of Leipsic, and Professor Weber of Goettingen. These three, he states, were perfectly convinced of the reality of the observed facts, and that they were not to be attributed to imposture or prestidigitation.
That he regarded Professor Fechner as one of the best observers in the world, and Professor Scheibner as an excellent observer. That Professor Zoellner was not at that time, in any sense, in an abnormal mental condition. Professor Weber seemed unwilling to speak decidedly on the subject, but showed that he leaned to the Spiritistic interpretation of the facts.
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