BORING GIVES VIEWS ON MARGERY PSYCHIC CASE

Opinion on the "Margery" spiritualistic sessions which have been going on in Boston since 1923, and in which many Harvard professors have been interested, was summarized in the statement made to a Crimson reporter yesterday by E. G. Boring, director of the Harvard Psychological Laboratory.

"The phenomena shown to us could be produced naturally," stated Dr. H. F. Day, instructor in Surgery, and Dr. Boring, when questioned yesterday as to their views on the spiritistic experiments conducted by Dr. L. R. G. Crandon '94, of Boston. The experiments have been witnessed in dark room sessions by investigators during the last ten years. The Harvard group which attended several seances at Emerson 11 a few years ago consisted of Professors R. S. Hillyer '17, Harlow Shapley, E. G. Boring, S. B. Wolbach, H. F. Day, S. F. Damon '14, G. H. Code '17, and John Marshall. '25, and a graduate student, Hudson Hoagland.

The psychic, "Margery," Mrs. Crandon, removed all clothing before the seances at Harvard, says a signed state- ment of the Harvard group in Dr. Crandon's report. "She wore into the seance room one warm woolen garment," Electric torches, large megaphones, bells, baskets, all illuminated by phosphorescent paint, formed the psychic's equipment. "Several professors wore illuminated Electric bands on feet and wrists, and illuminated marks fastened on the center of the forehead with tape." Twenty minutes after the session began, "Walter," the spirit, began to speak. "This is a nice, comfortable room: looks like the Charlestown Jall. What's this, a free country? To--with Harvard." The trance began. Later Walter asked Code to put the "doughnut," an illuminated paper disc, on the table. In doing so, Code touched the psychic structure in the center of the table. "It felt like the fieshy part of a and, rather rough," the report says of this. A megaphone was pushed into Damon's lap; the discrattied around the table. Walter commented, "My sakes, the child is born."

Hillyer's trouser-leg was pulled very strongly; Hillyer reported that the psychic's feet were not near his feet when his trouser cuff was pulled. An electric bulb on the ceiling fiashed on and off. Buzzers rang, a "teleplasmic" arm grasped objects on the table in the dark. The arm pulled Dr. Boring's hair. "Dr. Boring placed his nose in the doughnut and encouraged Walter to pull as hard as possible. He was pulled with a fumbling horizontal movement strongly enough to hurt a little."

The voice of Walter, the spirit, and the voice of the psychic were recorded at the time. Laboratory tests made later showed that the spirit's voice was not the voice of Margery.

One of Walter's recitations was a poem, as follows:

"Shall we gather at Old Harvard,

Shall we go to all the bother For McDougall?

Shall we gather at the river?

Shall we eat a pound of river For McDougall?"

"McDougall" signifies Professor William McDougall, former Harvard professor of Psychology.

During the experiments members of the group had double control of the physic's wrists and ankles, beside visual control. All present were illuminated wristlets and anklets and an electric circuit was passed through the circle arranged so that any break would be immediately perceptible to the operator, who stood outside the door.

The general opinion of the members of the Harvard group that could be reached last night was that the whole affair was a pure hoax. But complete, detailed accounts of all the sessions held in Emerson 11 in 1925 are contained in a hundred-page report, "Margery Harvard Veritas." Although signed statements of the professors testify to the fact that there was no trickery involved, the final verdict of the group was that the phenomena were not well-attested boxes on the professors laps, megaphones moved around the table, lights glowed, and "Margery" moved freely around in her compartment, although wired and clamped to her chair, and yet it was all a hoax, the professors maintained afterwards.

"You see," said Boring yesterday, "we don't really know what the phenomena are at bottom. The existence of supernatural phenomena stands unproved in the Margery sessions or in any other sessions, for the immediate sensual phenomena as actually observed by the eyes and ears were all later apparently reproduced and explained by an amateur magician, G. H. Code '17, a member of the Harvard professors' group.

"It's the attempt to prove a universal negative, which can't be done, nor can it be disproved either."

Dr. Crandon would not make a statement of any kind, when reached by telephone at his Boston office yesterday.

An article entitled "The Case Against Margery," appearing in the "Scientific American" this month, notes that of the ten persons in the Harvard group, the younger members were at first impressed, although the final verdict of all was "decidedly contra."

When reached last night, Dr. M. W. Richardson '89, who has been intimately connected with the mediumship for the last ten years, and has been given the opportunity to test and control it, stated that all phenomena have been proved genuine, and that since the time of the Harvard investigation many experiments have justified the belief that the mediumship is absolutely genuine. The complete account of the seances since 1923 are to be found in the Journal for the American Society of Psychic Research