Spirit photography

“ The term “spirit photographs” is generally [vi] used to describe photographs of psychic entities who cannot be seen by ordinary persons, but can be photographed by a medium, or with the help of a medium, and with the co-operation of these unseen entities. Such portraits are obtained both indoors and in the open air, with and without a background, by natural light and by artificial light; and, in the case of “materialised” forms at séances, which are visible to every person present, the portraits have sometimes been taken by light produced by the spirits, the exact nature of which is unknown. ”

“ Were photography the sole phenomenon associated with the movement, this might require to be investigated again and again, but for over thirty years certain positive statements have been made, and the evidence tendered, as to the reality of spirit raps, which psychical science can throw no light upon. ”

“ The most striking phenomena associated with what comes under the name of Spiritualism are those connected with photography. It was very naturally thought that nothing was so capable of bringing conviction to the inquirer as a record made by the camera, which might be considered free from all imagination, unconscious cerebration, expectancy, &c., and yet there has been no part of the phenomena that has been more fiercely assailed as being fraudulent. ”

“ A friend of mine, with a decided tendency to belief in the reality of spirit photography, was good enough to show me photographs of himself with spirit forms beside him, and undertook to repeat his visit to the photographer—who is accepted as genuine by leading spiritualists and appears to be the chief exponent in the art of spirit photography in this country—and take with him plates supplied by myself. ”

“ For one reason or another the men whose names were known ten or fifteen years ago seem to have dropped out and their places are being filled by new blood, men with high ideals and aspirations, who are not content merely with reproducing, by means of their cameras, pretty scenes and places, but who believe that photography is capable of much more—of showing not only the physical facts, but the very spirit of nature herself—a true impressionism ”

“ There are also the beautiful phenomena of the production of lights, and the rarer, but for evidential purposes even more valuable, manifestations of spirit photography. The fact that the photograph does not correspond in many cases with any which existed in life, must surely silence the scoffer, though there is a class of bigoted sceptic who would still be sneering if an Archangel alighted in Trafalgar Square. ”

“ They pointed out that some of the plates had been exposed twice, as shown by the marks on the edges caused by two different patterns of dark slide. The spiritualists, on the other hand, reported that “the photographers were not in a proper frame of mind” to obtain results.
In America the movement has always found rather more adherents than in this country. Spirit photography has been practised in different parts of the United States practically since Mumler’s time to the present day; the same medium usually producing other kinds of spirit phenomena as well. ”

“ A prophecy of the coming time when photographs of our friends, who have passed from earth-life, may be obtainable by the co-operation with us of spirits who desire to help us, and who will find opportunities and conditions to enable them to do so. When Mr. Stead’s proposal for a spiritual bureau becomes an accomplished fact, we may hope, and may reasonably expect, that spirit photography will be a department of it. Many strange events, which, fifty years ago, seemed as unlikely, are now of frequent occurrence. Mr. Taylor’s experiments are a lesson, as well as a prophecy. ”

“ You see the pattern of the carpet and the curtain of the study visible through the sitter's body and clothes. In one [Pg 244] instance at all events, where the ghost represents a well-known statesman, the head has obviously been cut from the photograph and the contour draped to hide the cut edges. But the phenomena of spirit photography are abundant enough in private circles.
I have before me as I write a number of reputed spirit photographs obtained by private persons both with and without the aid of a professional medium. ”

“ The sitter (who does not wish his portrait to appear) has obtained spirit photographs with his own camera and plates, when no other medium but himself was present, and all manipulations were done by himself. ”

“ There are many ways by which, assuming the genuineness of only one of all spirit photographs hitherto produced, the spurious article may be made even better than any alleged real ones I have yet seen. A plate secretly impressed previous or subsequent to being placed in the camera fulfils the condition; so does one at the back of which is placed a phosphorescent tablet in the dark slide. Pressure on the surface, such as by that of a Woodbury relief film, also causes a developable image; in short, trickery in a whole variety of forms may, and has been, impressed into the service. ”

“ Arthur Maltby said the spirit forms which are photographed were created from the aura that escapes from sensitive subjects. Some years ago a gentleman went to a photographer to have a portrait taken, and, instead of his portrait appearing, as he expected, that of a man who had been abroad for many years, and of whom he knew nothing, appeared on the plate. ”

“ Sometimes the psychic pictures are facsimile copies of magazine covers and pictures no fraudulent medium would ever think of producing, and, like the faces in our dreams, they may come from the subconscious. At the same time, attempts to produce definite conscious thought-pictures, with the co-operation of a photographic medium, have almost always proved abortive in our experiments in this country. ”

“ In conclusion, may I not ask, who shall say that the camera, adjusted by the hand that feels, and focussed by the sensitive eye that sees beyond, with the aid of the intensely sensitive dry plates, shall not bring to light and view the forms of our departed friends, and solve the problem of immortality and life? ”

“ Far too much time, in the past, has been lost in attempting to convince those who do not believe (and those who do not want to believe) , of the genuine nature of psychic photography, and our ignorance of this phenomenon is appalling. ”

“ In some cases the plates are not exposed in a camera, but merely submitted to “spirit influences,” which results in more or less distinct faces, or even screeds of writing, appearing on development.
It is not perhaps surprising to find that the spirit photograph originated in America, where it dates back to the days of the wet-plate process. The first recorded case comes from Boston, in 1862. One Mumler, an engraver by trade, made chemistry and photography his hobby; and having among his friends a professional photographer, he was frequently dabbling with plates and chemicals in his studio. ”

“ Spiritualists commonly assert that photographic phenomena are easier to control than any others, and this is in a sense true. They would be easy to control IF one were allowed to take the necessary precautions. But one is not, and under the conditions which actually prevail at photographic séances the procedure lends itself to fraud more readily, and in more diverse ways, than any other form of mediumistic activity. Photography is a comparatively complicated process, and [6] at every stage there is opportunity for the astute trickster to produce the effect he desires. ”

“ I thought when I began to write that I had little to say on photography, but now that I have got into the spirit of the subject, the possibilities, utilities, and various uses of photography start out before me from the chaos of unthought creation, all importuning me to take them up, one after the other, like a legion of undressed skeletons: photography as connected with etching, wood-engraving, lithography, zincography, typography, and a dozen other uses where photography is not only united in marriage to art, but must be regarded as the husband—i.e. ”

“ Such scenes live in their loveliness only for him who has seen and harvested them: they cannot be pictured forth to another by words, nor with the painter's brush, though it be charged with tintas orientales; least of all by photography, which brings all things down to one flat, monotonous, colourless shadow of things, weary to look at. ”

“ The motion picture art can portray any miracle. From the impressive visual standpoint, no marvel is barred to trick photography. A man's transparent astral body can be seen rising from his gross physical form, he can walk on the water, resurrect the dead, reverse the natural sequence of developments, and play havoc with time and space. Assembling the light images as he pleases, the photographer achieves optical wonders which a true master produces with actual light rays.
The lifelike images of the motion picture illustrate many truths concerning creation. ”

“ The tender affection of a ray of light touches the heart of a rose, brings a blush to its cheek, and life, becoming the bride of chemical affinity, blooms into surpassing beauty and loveliness. Photography is closely allied to nature’s painting, for just as light brings into existence nature’s living beauties, so does light fix, preserve, and perpetuate these beauties by the same subtile and mysterious agency of a quickened chemical affinity. Photography is both an art and a science, and as such is both beautiful and true. ”

“ You can hardly imagine how cumbrous and well-nigh hopeless a business it was in those days, not so long past, to pursue after wild life with a camera; but a thousand disheartening failures left him still grasping the inviolable shade, still confident that in photography, if it could only be given with rapidity and precision, lay the naturalist's hope. ”

“ One may scarcely call an estimate in art matters complete without an opinion from Mr. Ruskin. “In art we look for a record of man's thought and power, but photography gives that only in quite a secondary degree. Every touch of a great painting is instinct with feeling, but howsoever carefully the objects of a picture be chosen and grouped by the photographer, there his interference ends. It is not a mere matter of color or no color, but of Invention and Design, of Feeling and Imagination. Photography is a matter of ingenuity: Art of genius.” ”

“ Any one who has ever dabbled in photography to the extent of shutting himself up in a tight little closet, its pitch darkness tempered slightly by a dim red glow, and dipped dark, smoky-looking pieces of glass and paper into various solutions, knows with what eagerness he waits for the blank black squares and strips to come to life, break out into spots of light, which gradually assume familiar shapes and contours. ”

“ The sun and the camera between them certainly do your picture for you, and as you urge, there is more of artifice in the merest Sunday-school tale than in the best of photographs. Still, you must remember that photography too has its artifice, its choice of the right and the wrong way, and its exercise of judgment; there is a great deal in it that is not mechanical; and in its essence it is of the same class as the books I have been alluding to. ”

“ Some persons think that the requirement of darkness seems to infer trickery. Is not a dark chamber essential in the process of photography? And what would we reply to him who would say, ‘I believe photography to be a humbug—do it all in the light, and we will believe otherwise’? ”

“ But not only in portraiture is photography a great art, for it catches the stately pose of the mountain, the grandeur of the sea, the beauty of the forest, or the majesty of Niagara Falls, and brings them all home to us, even to the vision of the bed-ridden invalid. The camera alike records the secrets of the starry heavens and the bacteria of the microscopic world. ”

“ Again, certain critics never seem tired of pelting the novelist with comparisons drawn between painting and photography. "Mr. So-and-So's fidelity to life suggests the camera rather than the brush and palette" ”

“ We actors, directors and playwrights are seeking the artistic expression of the life of the soul; the existence and agency of the body are merely means to that end. We should be striving to capture the soft lights and shadows of mental impressionism; and not be struggling to imprison the bold sunlight and harsh lines of physical photography. Deep emotion and its characterization [Pg 85] lies not in the bold step forward, but in the shrinking half-step backward ”

“ Invention and design, feeling and imagination, are all a part of the photographer's suite. He employs them all. And these too are qualities the most artistic. Technique, which is manual and not spiritual, is the one point at which art and photography cannot coalesce. ”

“ We know from the camera how a lightning-flash really looks, what a horse is like when at full speed, the different actions of a bird’s wing when flying, the true shape of each wave in a storm, also the swing of drapery in a high wind, and how men and women really appear when excited; for before the days of instantaneous photography the painter was apt to be deceived, and take as one several motions and effects. ”

“ Now the photographer, who studies and hopes to excel at decorative photography, must remember that he must work on the same general principles as he does in producing pictures, that is, he must pay attention, in a broad way, to the tone of the room, to effects of contrast, to harmonies, to the effect of artificial lights and of complementary colours, and above all to naturalism. Thus a delicate landscape must not be enamelled on a tea-cup, for it is obviously false in principle to place a picture on a curved surface. ”