More About ' Spirit Photography '

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 2, 14 January 1909, Page 49

More About ' Spirit Photography '

Spiritism offers a small amount of bread to an intolerable deal of sack — a minute quantum of, real phenomena to a mountain of consciotis deception, unconscious illusion, and errors of inference o"r of observation. In pur articles on the subject (in 1907, and in our .'"-issues of December 10, December 17, and January 7) we have, however, confined ourselves to two phases of ..this queer supers'titiqn — namely, to professional mediums as a class,, and to a few of the classes of physical phenomena produced 'by them. We ask our readers, to bear this well in mind, and not to draw unwarranted conclusious from our occasional omission of the word ' professional' in the course of articles which were intended to deal with that class alone. In like manner, we trust that our references to the physical phenomena will be read as applying to these alone, j We have not yet touched upon the non-professional, jmedrumism, nor upon the non-mediumistic phenomena of spiritism.. We may have something to say about these at a" later stage — pointing out the very few and rare phases of their manifestations that, in our opinion, do not admit of natural explanation. We touch a different phase of the subject from that of the professional charlatan and his clumsy or clever ' manifestations,' when we come to (say) the ' magnetic ' somhambule, the medium with whom the greed of gold is not a motive of fraud, and the so-called clairvoyant .-who drops off spontaneously, on slight provocation, into a state of trance. Some of these offer curious problems for the psychologist as well as for the physician and for the investigator of spiritism. But this is a question into which it is not our purpose to enter here. "Let it suffice to remark here that (as Podmore shows in his Modern Spiritualism, 1902, vol. ii., pp. 290-2) a number of these mediums were of a distinctly neurotic, degenerate, or other pathological type — some of them victims of physical abnormality, sexual aberration, or hystero-epilepsy ; that there is a ' notorious prevalence of the drink habit amongst mediums' ; that, 'as the [spiritistic] movement progressed, there was a very large admixture of deliberate and apparently healthy knavery ' among private mediums ; that 'again and. again we find persons, removed by education and social position from the ordinary temptations to fraud, who are engaged in the production of physical manifestations involving elaborate and systematic fraud.' This phase of the subject makes a curious study for the moralist, as do some few of its phenomena for the student of the spiritistic cult. But here, for the present, we make our bow to it with an ' au revoir — perhaps.' •'

We now return a nos moutons — to the physical phenomena of so-called 'spirit photography.'. In our last issue we gave the reader a general idea of the "wiles and artifices of this tricky and (to many) impressive manifestation of spiritist phenomena. But our three pages of condensed exposition necessarily left, untouched" the> manner in which the too eager and credulous vision ' of the sitter is led at times to play unconsciously into the hands of the photographic medium. We pointed out in our last issue that the ' spooks ' or ' spirit forms ' that are made (by double exposure, the use of fluorescent substances, and other mediumistic stratagems) to ' materialise ' beside or

about the portrait of a sitter, "appear, as a rule, draped and filmy and fuzzy and indistinct. ' The very indistinctness 6f the ' 'spook's 1 ' 3 features makes it, of course, 3 said -we, ' difficult for the sitter to quarrel with the medium's positive statement that the "spirit-form' 3 is that of some near and dear one "not lost but gone before.".' Where outlines are so vague there is naturally ample room for the sly and practised suggestion of the medium, and for the imagination of his believing client to work a sufficient resemblance out of a comparative blur. Brief references to a few noted cases in point will best serve to illustrate the manner in which the simplicity, of the sitter is made to eke out the cunning of the charlatan.

Here we may remark that the first ' spirit photograph ' that made history was produced quite innocently. It was »in the old days of photography, when the portrait and landscape artist used sheets of plain glass and made one of the surfaces of each of them sensitive to the action of light by pouring over it wet collodion and ' humoring ' the liquid until it formed a -thin film which dried fairly rapidly. When one of these plates had served its purpose or had been spoiled, the film was removed, ' floated ' again with collodion, and used for a fresh sitter. An American photographer had taken a sitter in the customary way with one of these collodion plates. Prom the negative he took a print, and on the print, to his surprise, he saw the faint figure of ' a lady in white ' hovering over the sitter. An examination of the negative showed the second figure there in very faint and foggy outline. It turned out that the glass had previously borne the negative image of a y lady sitter dressed in white, and that in cleaning this off some very small inner pellicule or 'skin' of the film had mained, or a chemical action set up between the image and the glass, turning the latter yellow in parts. The result was a faint image of the lady sitter. The yellow "color was only dimly visible in the negative, but, being a non-actinic color, it gave a clear image upon the print. This sort -of accident was not uncommon in the old wet-plate photography.- But it gave to enterprising mediums who understood photography a cue to second exposures of the plates, which they soon exploited for the purpose of eking out thexr ' manifestations ' and attracting to their fobs the coins of the unwary. In October, -1862, a Boston photographer named Mumler took a portrait of Dr. Gardner, -of the same city. The Doctor announced that on the same plate and print there appeared that faint likeness of a cousin of his who had passed out through one of the many doors of death twelve years before, fepiritists and others flocked to Mumler's studio. He did good business in ' spirit photographs ' — some of his clients ' recognising ' the draped and foggy looking ' spooks ' as likenesses ' of friends who had gone before. In February, 1863, however, Dr. Gardner discovered that in at least two of the ' spirit photographs -' a specific living person had posed as the ' spook ' — a second exposure being made after the manner described in our last issue. Many continued to believe in him, chiefly because they failed to detect trickery in his methods. But the exposure by Dr. Gardner caused, for a time, a slump in Mumler's ' spirit photographs.' He seems to have disappeared from the scene after an abortive prosecution in New York in 1869.

' Spirit photography ' seems to have begun in England in 1872. The dramatis personce were the medium Mrs. Guppy, her husband, some other medium, and a photographer named Hudson. ' Spirit forms ' were, of course, duly produced. And— again of course— they were wrapped in pleutiful white drapery, and their features made so blurred and indistinct as to be only partly discernible or quite unrecognisable. Nevertheless, they were, as usual, ' recoghisod ' by many persons as the likenesses of friends who had passed away. 'Hudson's studio,' says Podmore (vol. ii., p. 118), ' was at once besieged by eager spiritualists, and numerous testimonies to the genuineness of the results appeared in the spiritualist papers. . . But very shortly the bright prospect -clouded. Mr. Enmore Jones, a well-known spiritualist, who had in his first enthusiasm described the instant recognition by his son of an imperfectly discernible profile as that of a dead sister, wrote later to say that he had found grounds for suspicion, and that, on further inspection, he was satisfied that the likeness was not of his daughter or of any member of his family. And worse was to follow. The editor of the Spiritualist, W. Hi, Harrison, himself a practical photographer, another photographer, Beattie, and other persons soon ascertained that, fraud had been used. , Ib was observed, on a close scutiny of the pictures, that in some cases the medium had dressed up to play the part of ghost. In many there were signs of doable exposure, the' pattern of the carpet and other parts of the background showing through tho legs of the sitter, as well as through those of the ghost. Inspection of the actual negatives again revealed that in

some cases they had been tampered with in the attempt to, erase these tell-tale marks.' Aa effort was made by spiritists and the spiritistic magazines to discount the evidences of fraud by an 'appeal to the cases in which the ' spirit figures ' were recognised by the sitters as the likenesses of their deceased friends. But it is hardly necessary to point out the doubtful value, or (as the case may be) the utter worthlessness, of many such recognitions. " The case of Enmore Jones has already been mentioned. Many other curious cases of ' recognition ' might be mentioned. Take, for instance, that of Mrs. Fitzgerald, a noted spiritist, who 'recognised, 3 'unmistakably,' a veiled and draped 'spirit photogragh 3 by the contour .alone (Spiritual Magazine, 1872, p. 321). Or take some of the cases of ' recognition ' alleged by the medium Stainton Moses : A ' spirit ' face superimposed upon another face, so that 'three eyes only were required to form two perfect faces'; a threequarter face 'spook' with chin, forehead, and sides of face concealed by drapery; a closely veiled figure (apparently that of a female) — this is ' recognised ' by its .glove ! — and the faint form of ' a baby enjhaloed in copious white' drapery.' The baby is recognised by its features. But the gilding is knocked off the ' recognition ' of the fluffy ' spirit ' baby when we learn that it had died fifty years before, at the age of seven months. At that early period of infantile existence, most babies are (to the 'mere man, at least) quite remarkably alike. And even a mother's heart might well be pardoned if, after half a century, her memory of a cherished baby form had grown dim.

The value of the ' recognition ' of the likenesses cf deceased friends in ' spirit photographs ' may be still further illustrated by the historic case of the photographic medium, Buguet. Buguet was a Parisian, photographer. He began to shed the light of his presence on London in the pleasant summer time of. 1874, and produced 'spirit photographs ' of greater clearness' and higher artistic quality than Hudson, Parkcs, Duguid, or othors of his time. And a far higher percentage of likenesses was discovered by. his clients than was the case with the other charlatans of the camera. In the Spiritualist of June, -1874, Mr. W. H. Harrison (already referred to -above as editor and practical photographer) states that he was present at one of the sittings and discovered no trick or ruse or stratagem. Buguet, however, would not permit Harrison to operate; and the only guarantee given him by which to identify the glass plate was a bit of glass — broken' off' by Buguet! This was, of course, a circumstance of the utmost suspicion. It allowed Buguet the amplest-/ scope for substituting ' faked ' for honest plates, and, for a score of the varied forms of trickery and imposture described in our last. issue. The noted medium, Stainton Moses, endorsed the reality of Buguet's ' spooks ' in the journal Human Nature (conducted by Moses). i

That was in the merry, month of May, 1875. Buguet's purse, like the fat boy's figure, was ' wisibly swelliri' ' with the shekels which he won, by his ' spirit photographs,' from the hands of the titled and untitled sitters that swarmed into his studio. But, for him, the end was near. A month after he had received the blessing of Stainton Moses' high approval, Buguet was arrested and charged by the Government of the Third French Republic with the fraudulent making and vending of ' spirit photographs.' A verbatim report of this historical spiritistic trial appeared in a book piiblished in the same year (1875) by Leymarie, of Paris, and entitled Proces des- Spirites. We give the accoxmt as it is condensed by a well-known writer on spiritistic themes : ' When put on his trial Buguet made a full confession. The whole of his " spirit " -photographs were, he .stated, produced by means of double exposure [the details of this imposture were described in our last issue]. In the first instance,, he employed his assistants — of whom there were three or four — to play the part of ghost. Lator, as his business grew, and he feared that the constant repetition of the same features might arouse suspicion, he constructed a headless doll or- lay figure, which, variously draped, served for the body of the ghost. The head was commonly chosen to suit the expectations, where these were expressed, or apparent circumstances of the sitter ; information on these points being frequently extracted by the assistants, who received the visitors on their entrance. The lay figure and a large stock of heads were seized by the police vat the studio.'

Our author continues with a" record of a peculiar phase of this illusion, to. which we direct the particular attention of the reader. 'The peculiar interest of the trial did not consist, however, in these paltry revelations; for, after all, Buguet did little to improve on the methods inaugfo. rated by his predecessors. It is • the effect produced ,rojo his dupes by Buguet's confession, and the display of fiii trick apparatus, which is really worthy of attention. Wit-

ness after witness — journalist, photographic expert, musician, merchant, man of letters, optician, ex-professor ofhistory, colonel of artillery, etc., etc. — came forward to testify on behalf of the .accused. Some had .watched the process throughout, and were - satisfied that trickery had not been practised. Many had obtained on the plate unmistakable portraits of . those dear to them, and found it impossible to relinquish their faith. One after another of these witnesses were confronted with Buguet, and heard him explain how the trick had been done. One after another left the witness-box, protesting that they could not doubt the evidence of their, own eyes. . . Incidentally, there were two or three curious bits of evidence on the value of recognition as a test. A police officer stated that Buguet showed him a portrait which had done duty us the sister .of one sitter, the mother of a second, and the friend of a third (Prochs des Spirites, p. 23). Again, it came out in the evidence that a very clearly defined- head (reproduced as an illustration to Moses' article in Human Nature), which had been claimed by M. Leymarie as the portrait of his almost lifelong friend, M. Poiret, was recognised by another witness as an excellent likeness of his father-in-law, still living at Dreux, and much annoyed at his premature introduction to the spirit world.' Of course it is easy for the medium who has, in any way, been able to procure portraits of specific dead persons, to pro--ject them as ' spirit forms ' into photographs of living sitters. And with the aid of an artist having some capacity for recalling and delineating faces that he knew, many curious and mysterious effects might be produced by the camera. But the facts stated above should, we think, induce our readers to accept with the greatest caution even the most positive asseverations contained in sundry current writings of Catholic and' other authors regarding photographic ' spirit, forms ' that are ' recognised ' as the deceased friends or relatives of this or that particular sitter. If such things happen in the green tree, what may not take place in the dry — if such positive ' recognition ' can commit so grievous errors in the case of the clearer and more artistic ' spooks ' of Buguet, what is the evidencevalue of such ' recognition ' in the case of the fainter and more fuzzy forms that (for sufficiently evident reasons) are favored by the great body of photographic mediums ? " We may add that the upshot of the trial referred to above was that Buguet — who was, perhaps, the most .famous and successful of the whole line of " ' spirit photographers ' — was sentenced to a year's imprisonment and a fine of five hundred francs (£2O). With the false pride or hallucination or infatuation that will not admit being the dupe of another's cunning, many contimied to believe in Buguet, and the most preposterous thories were put forward by Stainton Moses and other spiritists to account for the discovery of the convict's methods and his confession of guilt. One of the drollest ' explanations ' of the exposure was given by a prominent spiritist, William Howitt, who' roundly declared that the whole thing was a conspiracy of the Jesuits to overthrow spiritism ! The result was, however, a slump in ' spirit photography ' in England, from which it has never recovered. A few sporadic efforts have been made since then to revive those ' manifestations.'. But, with a few exceptions, these have resulted in little better than splashes of white such as might be produced by light passing through slits or pinholes in the camera and falling on the sensitised plate. All the remainder of which we have seen a record bear evidence (according to Padmore, vol. ii., pp. 123-5, and sundry eminent conjurers whom we have consulted) of second exposure or other methods of ' faking ' and manipulating the photographic plate with fraudulent intent. But a glance at the article on ' spirit photography ' in our last issue makes it sufficiently clear to us that the powers of trick photography have not even yet been nearly exhausted by the ' meejums ' who fool the credulous and the tinwary with camera and sensitised plate and illusive ' spook.'