Dr Theodore Hausmann, one of the oldest physicians in Washington, U.S.A., has devoted many years to this particular phase of mediumship. He places himself before his camera in the study and photographs his spirit visitors, who have included his father, son, and President Lincoln. The opening paragraph in an article he wrote is as follows:—
"Grieving parents, the bereaved widow and mother, will only be too happy if they can see the pictures of those again who were so dear to their hearts, and whose image gradually will vanish if nothing is left to renew their memories."
There have been many touching letters from relatives of grateful thanks, who imagine themselves in this way to have received portraits of their dear ones who have passed away.
In a work which I have come across in which spiritualism is by no means supported Mr J. G. Raupert acknowledges:
"That as regards spirit photographs, he 'obtained many striking pictures of this character, under good test conditions, and attended by circumstances yielding unique and exceptionally valuable evidence.... The evidence in favour of some of these psychic pictures is as good as it is ever likely to be, and, respecting some of these obtained by the present writer, expert photographic authorities have expressed their verdict. Sir William Crookes has obtained them in his own house under personally imposed conditions, and many private experimenters in different parts of the world have been equally successful."
This from an avowed opponent is striking testimony to some kind of manifestation which is not, in intent, at least, fraudulent.
CHAPTER XIII
CLAIRVOYANCE
It was natural that out of all these mystic practices—those I have already indicated and the others I am about to indicate—a cult or religion should have been moulded. To this cult has been given the name of spiritualism (or spiritism, as some of the newer devotees prefer to call it). Its great outstanding feature and essential mystery is, of course, physical mediumship. The creed of the believer in disembodied spirits is that the medium acts as the passive agent for certain physical and intellectual manifestations which do not belong to the rôle of the visible, tangible world in which we live. One of the forms of those manifestations is clairvoyance; others are materialisation—i.e. the actual incarnation of spiritual forms—physical manifestations such as table rapping, levitation, slate writing, etc., trance utterances and spirit photography.