Zöllner, Johann C. F. (1834-1882)

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Zöllner, Johann C. F. (1834-1882)

Professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Leipzig, remembered most for his speculative work, The Nature of the Comets, which attracted the attention of the intellectual world in view of the many original ideas he advanced. He also engaged in psychical research beginning with an investigation of the phenomena of the medium Henry Slade. His subsequent book, Transcendental Physics (1880), rendered his name famous in the annals of psychical research and subjected him to persecution, contempt, and ridicule from the scientific fraternity. He is considered a somewhat naive investigator unable to detect the fraud perpetuated on him by a series of physical mediums.

His experiments began in December 1877. He was assisted by William Edward Weber, a professor of physics; W. Scheibner, a professor of mathematics; and Gustave Theodore Fechner, a professor of physics who, to quote Zöllner's words, became "perfectly convinced of the reality of the observed facts, altogether excluding imposture or prestidigation." Professor Fichte, of Stuttgart, and Professor Ulrici, of Halle, also endorsed the experiments that were further supported by an affidavit of Bellachine, the conjurer at the court of Berlin.

The evidential value of the investigation was somewhat weakened by Zöllner's insistence on the theory of fourth dimension as an explanation. Of the theory itself, the astronomer G. V. Schiaparelli wrote in a letter to Camille Flammarion: "It is the most ingenious and probable that can be imagined. According to this theory, mediumistic phenomena would lose their mystic or mystifying character and would pass into the domain of ordinary physics and physiology. They would lead to a very considerable extension of the sciences, an extension such that their author would deserve to be placed side by side with Galileo and Newton. Unfortunately, these experiments of Zöllner were made with a medium of poor reputation."

Zöllner, after his sittings with Slade, had further interesting experiences with Elizabeth d'Esperance. In March 1880, Baron von Hoffmann engaged the medium William Eglinton to give twenty-five sittings to Zöllner. He was very satisfied with the result and intended to write another book on his experiences. He died before he could do it.

The report of the skeptical Seybert Commission quoted testimonies from Scheibner, Fechner, and some others that Zöllner, at the time of his experiments, was of unsound mind. As he filled his chair up to the moment of his sudden death, this charge cannot be seriously supported. In his book Birth and Death as a Change of Form of Perception (1886), Baron Lazar De Baczolay Hellenbach wrote that Zöllner "was in his last days deeply wounded and embittered by the treatment of his colleagues, whose assaults he took too much to heart. Zöllner, however, was in perfect possession of his intellect till his last breath."

When the report of the Seybert Commission was made public, anti-Spiritualists, like popular atheist writer Joseph McCabe, seized upon the remarks about Zöllner and wrote of him as "elderly and purblind." Dr. Isaac Kauffmann Funk, the New York publisher and psychical investigator, wrote to Leipzig and received from Dr. Karl Bücher, the Rector Magnificus of the University of Leipzig, a letter, dated November 7, 1903, that "information received from Zöllner's colleagues states that during his entire studies at the university here, until his death, he was of sound mind; moreover, in the best of health. The cause of his death was a hemorrhage of the brain on the morning of April 26, 1882, while he was at breakfast with his mother, and from which he died shortly after."