The editor of the British Journal of Photography has made experiments at Mr. Hudson’s studio, taking his own collodion and new plates, and doing everything himself, yet there were “abnormal appearances” on the pictures, although no distinct figures.
We now come to the valuable and conclusive experiments of Mr. John Beattie, of Clifton, a retired photographer of twenty years’ experience, and of whom the above-mentioned editor says: “Every one who knows Mr. Beattie will give him credit for being a thoughtful, skillful, and intelligent photographer, one of the last men in the world to be easily deceived, at least in matters relating to photography, and one quite incapable of deceiving others.”
Mr. Beattie has been assisted in his researches by Dr. Thomson, an Edinburgh M. D., who has practiced photography, as an amateur, for twenty-five years. They experimented at the studio of a friend, who was not a Spiritualist (but who became a medium during the experiments), and had the services of a tradesman—with whom they were well acquainted—as a medium. The whole of the photographic work was done by Messrs. Beattie and Thomson, the other two sitting at a small table. The pictures were taken in series of three, within a few seconds of each other, and several of these series were taken at each sitting. The figures produced are, for the most part, not human, but variously-formed and shaded white patches, which in successive pictures change their form, and develop, as it were, into a more perfect or complete type. Thus, one set of five begins with two white somewhat angular patches over the middle sitter, and ends with a rude but unmistakable white female figure, covering the larger part of the plate. The other three show intermediate states, indicating a continuous change of form from the first figure to the last. Another set (of four pictures) begins with a white vertical cylinder over the body of the medium, and a shorter one on his head. These change their form in the second and third, and in the last become laterally spread out into luminous masses resembling nebulæ. Another set of three is very curious. The first has an oblique flowing luminous patch from the table to the ground; in the second, this has changed to a white serpentine column, ending in a point above the medium’s head; in the third, the column has become broader and somewhat double, with the curve in an opposite direction, and with a head-like termination. The change of the curvature may have some connection with a change in the position of the sitters, which is seen to have taken place between the second and the third of this set. There are two others, taken, like all the preceding, in 1872, but which the medium described during the exposure. The first, he said, was a thick white fog; and the picture came out all shaded white, with not a trace of any of the sitters. The other was described as a fog with a figure standing in it; and here a white human figure is alone seen in the almost uniform foggy surface. During the experiments made in 1873, the medium, in every case, minutely and correctly described the appearances which afterwards came out on the plate. In one there is a luminous-rayed star of large size, with a human face faintly visible in the centre. This is the last of three in which the star developed, and the whole were accurately described by the medium. In another set of three, the medium first described “a light behind him, coming from the floor.” The next, “a light rising over another person’s arms, coming from his own boot.” The third, “there is the same light, but now a column comes up through the table, and it is hot to my hands.” Then he suddenly exclaimed, “What a bright light up there! Can you not see it?” pointing to it with his hand. All this most accurately describes the three pictures, and in the last, the medium’s hand is seen pointing to a white patch which appears overhead. There are other curious developments, the nature of which is already sufficiently indicated; but one very startling single picture must be mentioned. During the exposure one medium said he saw on the background a black figure, the other medium saw a light figure by the side of the black one. In the picture both these figures appear, the light one very faintly, the black one much more distinctly, of a gigantic size, with a massive coarse-featured face and long hair.—(Spiritual Magazine, January and August, 1873; Photographic News, June 28th, 1872.)
Mr. Beattie has been so good as to send me for examination a complete set of these most extraordinary photographs, thirty-two in number, and has furnished me with any particulars I desired. I have described them as correctly as I am able; and Dr. Thomson has authorized me to use his name as confirming Mr. Beattie’s account of the conditions under which they appeared. These experiments were not made without labor and perseverance. Sometimes twenty consecutive pictures produced absolutely nothing unusual. Hundreds have been taken, and more than half have been complete failures. But the successes have been well worth the labor. They demonstrate the fact that what a medium or sensitive sees (even where no one else sees anything) may often have an objective existence. They teach us that perhaps the bookseller, Nicolai, of Berlin—whose case has been quoted ad nauseam as the type of a “spectral illusion”—saw real beings after all; and that, had photography been then discovered and properly applied, we might now have the portraits of the invisible men and women who crowded his room. They give us hints of a process by which the figures seen at séances may have to be gradually formed or developed, and enable us better to understand the statements repeatedly made by the communicating intelligences, that it is very difficult to produce definite, visible and tangible forms, and that it can only be done under a rare combination of favorable conditions.
We find, then, that three amateur photographers, working independently in different parts of England, separately confirm the fact of spirit-photography—already demonstrated to the satisfaction of many who had tested it through professional photographers. The experiments of Mr. Beattie and Dr. Thomson are alone absolutely conclusive; and, taken in connection with those of Mr. Slater and Dr. Williams, and the test photographs, like those of Mrs. Guppy, establish as a scientific fact the objective existence of invisible human forms and definite invisible actinic images. Before leaving the photographic phenomena we have to notice two curious points in connection with them. The actinic action of the spirit-forms is peculiar, and much more rapid than that of the light reflected from ordinary material forms; for the figures start out the moment the developing fluid touches them, while the figure of the sitter appears much later. Mr. Beattie noticed this throughout his experiments, and I was myself much struck with it when watching the development of three pictures recently taken at Mr. Hudson’s. The second figure, though by no means bright, always came out long before any other part of the picture. The other singular thing is, the copious drapery in which these forms are almost always enveloped, so as to show only just what is necessary for recognition of the face and figure. The explanation given of this is, that the human form is more difficult to materialize than drapery. The conventional “white-sheeted ghost” was not then all fancy, but had a foundation in fact—a fact, too, of deep significance, dependent on the laws of a yet unknown chemistry.
SUMMARY OF THE MORE IMPORTANT MANIFESTATIONS, PHYSICAL AND MENTAL.
As we have not been able to give an account of many curious facts which occur with the various classes of mediums, the following catalogue of the more important and well-characterized phenomena may be useful. They may be grouped provisionally, as, Physical, or those in which material objects are acted on, or apparently material bodies produced; and Mental, or those which consist in the exhibition, by the medium, of powers or faculties not possessed in the normal state.
The principal physical phenomena are the following:
1. Simple Physical Phenomena.—Producing sounds of all kinds, from a delicate tick to blows like those of a heavy sledge-hammer. Altering the weight of bodies. Moving bodies without human agency. Raising bodies into the air. Conveying bodies to a distance out of and into closed rooms. Releasing mediums from every description of bonds, even from welded iron rings, as has happened in America.
2. Chemical.—Preserving from the effects of fire, as already detailed.