Dialectical Committee's Report.

As far back as the year 1869 a Committee of the Dialectical Society, which was established "for the purpose of considering all subjects with a view to the discovery and elucidation of Truth," was appointed to investigate these extraordinary phenomena. In that year Sir John Lubbock—now Lord Avebury—the distinguished Naturalist and Anthropologist, was President of the Society.

The Committee consisted of 36 members, who were sub-divided into six Sub-committees, each of which conducted experiments with different mediums under conditions which the investigators admitted precluded the possibility of fraud or delusion, and in the course of its very voluminous Report it stated that "four-fifths of the members were at the outset opposed to Spiritualism," but "they considered it encumbent upon them to state their conviction that the subject is worthy of more serious attention and careful investigation than it has hitherto received," and added that "the manifestations were witnessed without the aid or presence of any professional medium."