Read Ebook: The Case Against Spirit Photographs by Patrick C Vincent Smith W Whately Walter Whately

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This is followed by their seven signatures. E added afterwards a paragraph of his own as to the interpretation of the word "accomplice." E was much the acutest observer and the most obstinate sceptic of the seven: I think he suspected D of being in some way my accomplice; some of the others suspected him of being a medium. He certainly was not an accomplice--for I never had one in the room; he may be a medium for aught I know--but I should doubt it.

"The box of plates was produced by C, and the seals were found to be intact. The box was taken into the dark-room by A, and a plate-carrier--which had been previously examined by several of those present--by B. The seals were broken, and a plate was loaded in the presence of A, B, D, and E, who signed their names on stamp-paper fixed to the back of the plate.

"In attempting to fit the slide into the camera, the plate was accidentally exposed. It was discarded, and another plate signed and loaded by A, C, E, and Patrick. C then locked the plate away in a drawer, and kept the key until the slide was required for the photograph."

"The plate was developed by Patrick; A, C, and E watching. An extra pair of eyes and the upper part of a nose developed, apparently on the wall; they were brightly illuminated, from the same position as the other figures. They were larger than those of the other members of the group, and were over B's head.

"We consider that this is a true account of what occurred. Barring any very abstruse and elaborate explanation, it would seem that the photograph is undoubtedly genuine."

Unfortunately this meeting was not a complete success, as, immediately the show was over, our ever-curious geologist E began hunting about the floor, and discovered a small loop of fishing-line . He could not very well announce his find at the time, as the medium was not yet roused from his trance, and the others were busy feeling his pulse, fanning him and administering cold water!

All the photographs were obtained by the general method of double exposure and substitution, the substitution being effected at a different point on each occasion; the methods used, or slight variations of them, are all described in the section on "Methods of Fraud."

Now I maintain that the conditions imposed upon me were as strict, or stricter, than any professional medium allows. If an amateur photographer but little practised in sleight-of-hand can under such conditions deceive intelligent observers--not once, but several times over--how much easier will it not be for the professional spirit photographer, who makes such frauds his business?

Since spiritualists claim that the presence of invisible spirits may be detected by photography, it seems reasonable to inquire how far this is compatible with established physical facts. If a plate is wrapped in paper and submitted to "spirit influences"--whatever these may be--never being exposed in a camera at all, and on development shows faces or writing, I personally can only find one explanation--trickery. But if a plate is duly exposed with camera and lens, and unseen faces appear on development, the matter is not quite so simple. For it is well recognised that the camera may record what is invisible to the eye; invisible stars are detected by the photographic plate, and anyone who has examined a nebula or comet through a telescope, after seeing a photograph of the same object, realises this fact to his disappointment. Similarly a can of hot water may be photographed, by a long exposure, in a perfectly dark room; and another well-known instance of a similar phenomenon is Sir Robert Ball's story of photographing some writing on the side of the "Great Eastern," years after it had been painted out and rendered invisible.

Now in order to photograph an invisible object we require rays that affect a photographic plate; are capable of refraction by a lens; and are invisible to the eye. The properties of the principal known rays concerned may be summarised as follows:

It appears, then, that ultra-violet rays are suitable for our purpose; infra-red rays, if present in an amount sufficient to affect a photographic plate, would make themselves very evident as heat, and may therefore be ruled out.

Ordinary daylight contains ultra-violet rays, as also does the light of the arc lamp and magnesium flash; lamplight, gas-light, and the ordinary electric light, are comparatively deficient in them. But are we to assume that the spirit form is dependent on finding suitable rays in the surrounding ether, or can it produce its own? Perhaps some spiritualist will tell me. This is a point of some practical importance in examining a reputed spirit photograph; for if the spirit is self-luminous its features will be evenly illuminated and without shadows, nor will it cast a shadow on the sitter or background, but rather the reverse. If, on the other hand, the spirit is dependent on the presence of ultra-violet rays from other sources, which it can reflect, then the spirit in the photograph will appear to be illuminated from the same point as the sitter, and by absorption or reflection of the ultra-violet actinic rays which would otherwise have passed on, will cast a shadow on the background. Being a shadow cast by the removal of the ultra-violet rays only, it will of course appear as such in the photograph, but be invisible to the eye.

There are a number of other points by which a spirit photograph may betray its method of production without reference to the conditions under which it was taken. Many spirit extras are simply copies of existing photographs, which are usually camouflaged in some way. Draperies may be substituted for the hair, or the features slightly retouched. A common method is to reverse the original photograph, right for left; a number of Hope's productions were recently published in a monthly magazine, and alongside them life portraits of the "spirits," the letterpress emphasising that, though undoubtedly the same face, they were different photographs. On examination with a mirror, however, the photographs were seen to be identical, and careful measurement of the faces showed the proportions to be exact. In the photographs more recently published by Mr. Bush, who laid a trap for Hope into which the latter appears to have fallen, the spirit was not reversed, nor was even the rather peculiar attitude of the head in the original photograph altered. A little spirit drapery was added round the face, and the whole thrown slightly out of focus; it is really a most clumsy piece of work, and should deceive no one.

In some spirit photographs produced by double exposure there is a double background, as occurred in my own photograph referred to above. There may be either two different backgrounds, or a double outline of the same background; in either case the "spirit's background" is usually fainter than the "sitter's background," and shows through the darker parts of the sitter. Sometimes attempts are made to retouch these appearances on the negative, and many spirit photographs show clumsy brush or pencil work, which must immediately stamp them as frauds.

Frequently, again, careful examination shows that spirit extras are not photographs at all, but resemble wash drawings. This gives the clue to their origin, for several of the methods described in a preceding section produce a result of this kind. It has been several times pointed out that spirit extras in some cases show the characteristic dots produced by the half-tone newspaper illustration process; if the medium cannot obtain a real photograph of the required spirit, he has to copy a newspaper reproduction. If he is clever, he can eliminate these process marks by printing in his spirit slightly out of focus; but very often he does not take the trouble.

A Miss Corbet took a photograph of the library of Combermere Abbey, Cheshire, on December 5th, 1891. She was alone at the time, and left the camera during the exposure, as it was a long one. She kept a note-book with records of her photographs, which afterwards showed that an exposure of one hour had been given, namely from 2 to 3 p.m. Unfortunately she did not develop the photograph till eight months later, and was then amazed to find a figure occupying a chair in a prominent position in the photograph. The figure was faint and transparent, the legs being quite invisible; the features were not recognisable; but the presence of a head, shoulders and arm was fairly plain. Inquiries were made, and it was found that not only was the chair in question the one Lord Combermere had been wont to occupy, but that he had died a few days before the photograph was taken, and was actually being buried some two miles from the Abbey at the hour at which the photograph was taken. The photograph was naturally shown to the dead nobleman's relatives, some of whom professed to recognise it as Lord Combermere. It was further pointed out that he had lost the use of his legs in an accident some three weeks before his death, and that the spirit figure was correspondingly legless!

A somewhat similar case is recorded by Podmore. The photograph was being taken, this time, in a chapel. On development a faint face was seen framed in a panel. This was described as being the likeness of a friend of the photographer's who had recently died--"a handsome, melancholy lad of eighteen." Another critic thought that the face was that "of a woman of thirty"; it must have been very indistinct. It may well have been caused in the same manner that was suggested for the Combermere photograph; a visitor to the chapel standing in the field of the camera for some moments, probably not realising that an exposure was in progress.

Experiments have on several occasions been made by amateurs, deliberately trying for spirit extras, and exposing scores of plates, usually without success. The unsuccessful attempts of Russell, Beattie, Dr. Williams, and more recently Dr. Pierce, have already been alluded to. Experiments of rather a different nature have been carried out by a Frenchman, Dr. Baraduc. His most interesting--if somewhat gruesome--result was a series of photographs taken over the death-bed of his wife, at the time of, and for some hours after, death. The negatives showed globes of light floating over the bed, which gradually increased in size and brightness, and coalesced in the later photographs. The circumstances certainly seem to exclude fraud, and it is very difficult to understand how the progressive series of photographs could have been obtained by accidental means, such as a pinhole in the camera. His results are very interesting, but need repeating by other experimenters; in any case, they have absolutely nothing in common with the conventional spirit photographs which show faces and figures.

The so-called "Fairy Photographs" recently published by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Mr. E. L. Gardner do not strictly come under the heading of "spirit photographs," but may not inappropriately be considered here. We have no evidence of the conditions under which they were taken; as Sir Arthur explains, such "rare results must be obtained when and how they can." We have therefore to learn what we can from an examination of the photographs, or of their reproductions. At first sight they look like genuine untouched photographs; their general appearance is excellent, and if frauds, they are certainly good ones. On examining them more carefully, however, a considerable number of points are found requiring explanation. Some of these have no doubt been noticed by different observers; the principal criticisms of the different photographs are these.

The gnome's proportions are certainly not human, as are the fairies' in the other photographs; he rather resembles the familiar "Brownie" of the Kodak advertisements. Though stepping up onto the girl's knee, he is noticeably looking away from her, and at the camera, which is very unnatural and likely to cause him a tumble! Criticism has been directed against the girl's hand, but this is quite a common photographic distortion of a hand held rather near the camera. In my copy, however, the elbow appears rather peculiar.

The other points, taken together, can leave no possible doubt that the photograph is a fake. It could have been produced by making a positive enlargement from the negative of Iris on one of the bromide papers specially prepared for working up. The gnome would then be sketched on this--he certainly resembles a sketch more than a photograph--and the whole would then be re-photographed on to a quarter-plate. No doubt an entirely satisfactory result would not be secured at the first attempt; in fact, Mr. Gardner tells us that "other photographs were attempted, but proved partial failures, and plates were not kept." Surely such extraordinary photographs, even if partial failures, would be kept--if they did not show something that was not intended! We have known plates to be destroyed on other similar occasions, and for similar reasons.

These photographs have attracted a good deal of attention, and seem to have been accepted as genuine in some quarters. No doubt much reliance has been placed on the statement of one experienced photographer, Mr. Snelling, that they show no evidence of manipulation, disregarding the adverse criticisms of several other photographers to whom they were shown. I consider that there is not the slightest doubt that they are fakes, simply on the internal evidence they provide, and I have endeavoured to explain the principal points on which this opinion is based.

The reliability of witnesses is a crucial question in the study of psychical phenomena and has for long been a bone of contention between spiritualists and their critics. If honesty, care, and intelligence alone sufficed to make a man's testimony reliable the whole range of spiritualistic phenomena, including spirit photography, might long ago have been taken as proved beyond all possibility of doubt. But this is very far from being the case, and although it is never pleasant to express flat disbelief of the accuracy of people's statements, the Psalmist's dictum that "all men are liars" should be graven on the heart of every psychical researcher, especially in the case of those who attempt to investigate "physical" phenomena.

Of course, some of the methods described by Mr. Patrick do not involve touching the plates at all. It would not be at all impossible for an artist in such work to allow a sitter to use his own plates, camera, slides, dishes, and chemicals in his own studio and dark-room, to load, unload, and develop the plates himself without their ever being touched by the "medium" and yet to produce a perfectly good extra.

These experiments are not nearly so widely known as they deserve to be, but it is not too much to say that no one who has not read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested them is competent so much as to begin to talk about the genuineness of spirit photography; unless, of course, he happens to have acquired a knowledge of trick methods and the scope of deception by other means--such as Mr. Patrick adopted in his experimental work!

A number of reports were thus obtained from men and women of unquestionable intelligence and acumen which, if they had been even approximately accurate, would have established the supernormality of Mr. Davey's phenomena beyond any peradventure. But comparison of their reports with the known and recorded procedure which actually took place showed the most astonishing discrepancies. Omissions and distortions of the first importance were abundant and the experiments proved to the hilt that, for phenomena of this kind, the reports of untrained witnesses are, in general, not worth the paper they are written on.

I have drawn attention to these experiments of Mr. Davey elsewhere and I am sorry to be obliged to insist on their importance again. But until people learn that the reports of uninstructed observers--however acute in other respects--are utterly unreliable, the fraudulent medium will flourish and the unsuspecting public will be robbed and deceived.

There are two ways in which evidence based on recognition may be defective.

First, the recognition may be perfectly well founded, but the "extra" may have been derived from an existing photograph of the deceased; second, and more frequently, the recognition is illusory and exists only in the sitter's imagination.

Recognition can scarcely be assessed objectively; it is essentially a subjective affair, and as such liable to all the distorting factors which affect every mental process.

If I had to summarise the whole of modern psychological doctrines in one line I should quote the popular saying, "The wish is father to the thought." The whole of our mental activity, our thoughts, actions, opinions, and dreams are moulded by wishes or innate tendencies of one kind or another. Often, of course, these conflict with one another; but that does not alter the principle involved.

I believe that the great majority of the recognitions of spirit photographs are determined either by the definite wish to find evidence of survival or by the vaguer desire to obtain "positive" results of some kind, for positive results are always pleasanter and more satisfactory than negative.

It should also be remembered that in everyday life recognition is a much more sketchy affair than might at first be suspected. Experiments have shown that in reading, or in viewing a drawing, we do not take cognizance of each individual element; on the contrary our attention flits, so to speak, from point to point, skipping altogether the intervening matter. We thus obtain an outline or skeleton impression which we fill up from our own resources. We actually notice a few salient features and interpolate the rest; hence, for example, the well-known difficulty of "spotting" mis-prints in proofs. This process is perfectly satisfactory for ordinary purposes such as reading, and seldom results in our misinterpreting the symbols before us, and when it does the context usually puts us right. But in dealing with spirit photographs the context, if there can properly be said to be any, is much more likely to put us wrong. The "salient features" which "leap to the eyes" are, in this case, those which suffice to locate a face as belonging to a certain general type, while the details which we fill up for ourselves are just those which are necessary for the identification of a particular individual. Consequently, false recognition is easy provided the general type is all right. The "beauty" is emphatically "in the eye of the beholder." As "M.A. ," a famous spiritualist and a believer in spirit photographs, well said:

"Some people would recognise anything. A broom and a sheet are quite enough to make up a grandmother for some wild enthusiasts who go with the figure in their eye and see what they wish to see.... I have had pictures that might be anything in this or any other world sent to me, and gravely claimed as recognised portraits; palpable old women authenticated as 'my spirit brother, dead seventeen years, as he would have been if he had ...' etc."

More important is Mr. Edward Bush's "Spirit Photography Exposed," a small pamphlet published by the author as a contribution to the "Nehushtan Crusade." The object of the latter movement, of which one gathers that Mr. Bush is the leading spirit, is to show that all the physical phenomena of Spiritualism are fraudulent and to expose dishonest mediums. This last object, at least, is admirable, and Mr. Bush is certainly entitled to consider himself "one up" on Hope in the matter of spirit photographs.

Mr. Bush appears, I may add, to be almost wholly ignorant of fraudulent methods, but he has successfully made good his deficiency in this case by the exercise of a little diplomacy.

For there is an attitude of resolute credulity which is quite proof against reason. I do not for a moment suggest that spiritualists enjoy a monopoly of this quality; they do not, for it is equally to be found in other quarters, among materialistic scientists and party politicians, for example, who constantly ignore the plain implications of evidence if the latter happens to conflict with their cherished beliefs.

But however hopeless the task may be, it seems none the less to be a duty to protest from time to time against this state of mind, of which several striking examples are to be found in the articles in question.

The conviction of the genuineness of spirit photographs is a conviction which is founded on purely negative evidence , and held in the face of definite positive evidence . But once formed it seems impossible to shake it, and just as always happens when emotion rather than reason is responsible for an opinion, every adverse indication is distorted into an additional corroboration. Just as a lover distorts the faults of his mistress into virtues--frivolity being regarded as gaiety, dulness as profundity and intransigeance as strength of mind--so the plain indications of fraud which leap to the eyes of the unbiassed student are gravely put forward as evidence of the wonderful ways in which the spirits work.

If only believers in spirit photographs would take the trouble to learn a little more about fraud and tighten up their control accordingly, instead of inventing strange hypotheses to bolster up their imperfect observations, we should hear less of photographic mediums and fewer people would be duped in this deplorable fashion.

I may very well be wrong, there may very well be methods which I do not know and cannot imagine which would get round even this degree of control, but I am inclined to think that this procedure would be "fraud-proof." Nothing less rigorous can be so, at any rate for a single-handed investigator, and even if several were present no confidence could be felt in the results unless they were well versed in fraud, they had planned and rehearsed everything in advance, the medium were completely docile and willing to keep right away from the plates at the critical moments, and the studio were known to be unprepared.

If and when these simple conditions are allowed , I shall be prepared to admit that the scent is getting warm and that there may be something in spirit photographs after all. Until then I must reluctantly maintain my view that they are the most obviously fraudulent of all spiritualistic phenomena.

In conclusion we must confess that we have little hope of influencing convinced believers by the preceding discussion. It is just possible that here and there someone may realise that there is more scope for trickery than there appeared to be at first sight, may scrutinise procedure more carefully, may have the courage to distrust his own powers of observation, may even--if he is lucky--catch a swindler out. But this is unlikely. "Once convinced always convinced" seems to be the rule. "What matter if all appearances and all reasoning are against our beliefs? Did not Satan put marine fossils on the tops of hills to shake our faith in Genesis? Did not stupid spirits carelessly leave false beards and dirty muslin in the pockets of Williams and Rita--those wonderful materialising mediums? Do not even the greatest psychics resort to fraud when the Power fails?"

No! Some people's faith could never be shaken, not though we gave them two hundred methods of fraud instead of twenty and not though a medium were exposed a hundred times instead of but twice or thrice.

But it may be that there are some who still have doubts and still halt between two opinions. We hope that to these this paper may be of some service as a contribution to the evidence available for their study. It is also possible that it may in some measure act as an antidote to the unreliable matter which is now so freely disseminated and which does so much to bring Psychical Research and the better aspects of Spiritualism into undeserved disrepute.

PRINTED BY THE ANCHOR PRESS LIMITED, TIPTREE, ESSEX, ENGLAND.

FOOTNOTES:

I am assuming, for the purposes of comparison, that these later phenomena actually occur--a point on which I am doubtful.

I exclude, of course, the very rare instances when photographs of apparently supernormal origin have been obtained by amateurs of unimpeachable integrity. I have yet to meet with a convincing case of this kind.

This may have been true, but was certainly not the principal reason that I had to have the plate destroyed! I had over-exposed my spirit, and I feared this plate would not bear closer inspection .

Unless, of course, there happens to be in the room a source of ultra-violet rays other than the ordinary illuminant by which the photograph is taken but which does not emit visible light rays. This possibility may be disregarded for practical purposes.

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