shed by the aid of 'spirits.' Guernilla himself,
at my house, in my presence, in broad daylight, performed all the feats
and exhibited the phenomena that were produced at the dark and other
seances, and he repeated them until I myself became as expert as he in
performing them; for which I paid him a consideration. So much for the
mediumistic power."

Mr. Sellers explained with reference to Mr. Kellar:

"I pause here for the express purpose of having the fact noted that, being
thoroughly familiar with the details of the methods of those experiments,
I can positively assure the Committee that there is no mediumistic power
in Mr. Kellar, so far as his methods are concerned, that those methods are
as easy of solution as are any other physical problems."

CHAPTER XIII.

THE UNALTERABLE VERDICT.

The "Seybert Commission"[3] examined every known form of spiritualistic
manifestation to which they had access, and implicitly under conditions
imposed by the "mediums" themselves. These conditions are everything that
could be devised and plausibly used to prevent the hoped-for dupe from
detecting the fraud that is practised upon him.

The Commission put the indelible stamp of fraud upon all so-called
spiritualistic manifestations. Of the "spiritual rappings" they say:

"To the subject of 'spirit-rappings' we have devoted some time and
attention, but our investigations have not been sufficiently extensive to
warrant us at present in offering any positive conclusions. The difficulty
attending the investigation of this mode of spiritualistic manifestation
is increased by the fact, familiar to physiologists, that sounds of
varying intensity may be produced in almost any portion of the human body
by voluntary muscular action. To determine the exact location of this
muscular activity is at times a matter of delicacy.

"What we can say thus far, with assurance, is that, in the cases which
have come under our observation, the theory of the purely physiological
origin of the sounds has been sustained by the fact that the 'mediums'
were invariably, and confessedly, cognizant of the 'rappings' whenever
they occurred, and could at once detect any spurious 'rappings,' however
exact and indistinguishable to all other ears might be the imitation."

Mrs. Kane has expressed amusement over the manner in which she eluded the
inquisitions of the grave and conscientious Commission and left them
puzzled over the "rappings."

Even then,