The session was devoted to consideration of the seances held with Dr.
Henry Slade, from January 21st to January 28th inclusive.

The following is a compilation of written notes and verbal comments upon the seances by members of the Committee: 

Mr. Coleman Sellers (referring to notes): 

The Committee met on January 21st, 1885, at the Girard House,
Philadelphia, in Room 24.

There were present:  Messrs. Thompson, Sellers and Furness, of the
Committee, and the Medium, Dr. Henry Slade.

The seance was conducted at a pine table prepared by the Medium, which was supplied with two falling leaves and stationed at a point remote from the centre of the room, and contiguous to a wall of the apartment.  Upon the table were two ordinary writing slates and fragments of slate pencils.

The relative positions of the Medium and the Committee were as follows:  the Medium was seated in the space between the table and the wall.  Professor Thompson occupied a chair at the side of the table to the right, and Mr. Furness one at the side to the left of the Medium.  Mr. Sellers was seated at the side directly opposite to the Medium.

After calling attention to the slates and the pencil pieces, the Medium remarked that, as his baggage had not come to hand, he was apprehensive that the sitting would not be a very good one.  A brief, general conversation followed, and then, complying with a direction of the Medium, all present joined hands upon the table.  Thereupon the Medium abruptly started back, and, remarking that he had received a very severe shock of some kind, inquired whether the gentlemen present had not experienced a like sensation.  The responses were in the negative.

The Medium next proposed to give an exhibition of “Spiritism” through the agency of communications invisibly written upon the apparently blank surface of one of the slates.  At this point Mr. Sellers asked that the table be examined, and, with the assent of the Medium, an examination was accordingly made by the Committee; the only noteworthy result of which was the discovery immediately beneath the table-top of openings or slots into which the bars supporting the table leaves entered when turned to permit the lowering of the leaves.

(Mr. Sellers here continued, without reference to notes): 

These slots and the use to which I ascertained they might be applied are worthy of special comment, as they played a very important part in all the expositions that were made of the Medium Slade’s manifestations.  The slot under the table into which the vibrating bar passed when the leaf was lowered was an inch and a-quarter in depth.  At a later period of the meeting, when the opportunity was afforded, I took the slate in my hand, and, from the table side at which I was seated (the one directly opposite the Medium’s position) passed it into the slot, allowing it to rest there diagonally.  Upon removing my