nt at three or four of
the regular seances with Slade. Slade came to Professor Zoellner's
rooms; they sat around a table for perhaps half an hour, and then, after
the seance was over, they spent an hour or two sitting informally in the
same room, or in the next room, and talking. During these informal
conversations surprising things would occur. Raps would now and then be
heard, and objects would unexpectedly be thrown about the room. In these
conversations Professor Scheibner was present perhaps five or six times.
Some of these took place during the day, and some in the evening.

2. Professor Scheibner said that each single thing that he saw might
possibly have been jugglery, "although he perceived nothing that raised
a direct suspicion."

The whole number of incidents taken together, however, surprised him,
and seemed scarcely explicable as jugglery, for there did not seem to be
the necessary time or means for preparing so many tricks, "which often
connected themselves surprisingly with desires casually expressed in
momentary conversations."

Professor Scheibner said, however, that he did not regard himself as
competent to form an opinion which should have scientific weight,
because:

(_a_) He knows nothing about jugglery;

(_b_) He was merely a passive spectator, and could not, properly
speaking, make observations--could not suggest conditions, "or gain the
control which seemed necessary;" and

(_c_) He is short-sighted, "and might easily have left unnoticed
something essential."

He says merely, that to him, _subjectively_, jugglery did not seem a
good "or sufficient" explanation of the phenomena.

3. Professor Scheibner said that he had never seen anything of the kind
before. He had never even, since his childhood, seen any exhibitions of
jugglery; he does not go to see such things, because he is so
short-sighted that if he went he would see nothing. In this connection
he repeated his statement that from this, among other causes, he did not
regard himself as competent to give an opinion. He said that many
persons in Germany had demanded his opinion, but that he had refused it
because he regarded his subjective impression, without objective proofs,
as scientifically valueless.

4. Professor Scheibner said that he did not believe in these things
before. He came to the seances because Professor Zoellner was a personal
friend. He has seen very little of the sort since.

That little has been in the presence