The Case Against Spirit Photographs

by C. Vincent Patrick; W. Whately Smith

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.

As regards the first of these points, it should be remembered that most people are photographed at one time or another, some of them frequently, and that it is not very difficult to obtain a photograph of a given person if one goes about it in the right way. A spirit photographer with an extensive clientèle will find it well worth his while to take the necessary steps to secure photographs appropriate to at any rate his more regular sitters, from whom, in the course of a few séances, it will not be difficult to glean enough information to put him on the right track. It is, of course, particularly easy if they happen to be well-known people, photographs of whose relatives may have appeared from time to time in the press. But although this method may sometimes be employed where circumstances lend themselves thereto, or when there is some reason which makes a first-rate “test” especially desirable, I do not think that it is responsible for more than a small percentage of the recognitions which are claimed.

By far the greater proportion appear to be due to the operation of subjective factors which lead the sitter to “recognise unmistakably” an extra which bears no more than a vague general resemblance to the person whom it is claimed to represent.

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.

To attempt a full discussion of the psychological process of recognition in general would take us very far, but I think it may be conceded that it is based on some kind of a comparison between the object (“extra”) actually perceived and a visual image of the person concerned which is evoked for the purpose. But visual images are very plastic, so to speak, as anyone who tries to visualise the face of a friend accurately will be able to verify for himself. The general impression may be clear enough, but details of proportion and the like are very elusive. We all know, too, how faces get distorted in dreams (though by somewhat different causes from those which we are considering here), and it may well be that it is for reasons of this kind that recognition is so often unreliable even in ordinary life. Which of us has not been struck by the likeness of a press photograph to someone whom we know, or who has not been momentarily misled by the slight resemblance of a passer-by to his contemporary inamorata? In my judgment it is entirely in conformity with modern psychological views, or, indeed, a necessary consequence of them, to suppose that the process of recognition is as subject to the influence of emotional wish-tendencies as are all the other mental processes which have been studied.

This supposition is immensely strengthened by a consideration of the actual material dealt with. I have seen a good many spirit photographs, and I am sure that those who have seen more will agree with me that the number which are clear enough to be capable of definite recognition at all is extremely small. They are almost invariably blurred, out-of-focus, indistinct things, frequently so covered in “spirit drapery” as to leave no more than two eyes, a nose and a mouth visible, while the shape of the head and the hair are quite indistinguishable. In the great majority of cases it seems to the unbiassed observer nothing short of absurd to claim that such vague and indefinite effigies can be “unmistakably” recognised. And when it comes to recognition being instantly claimed from the negative and before a print is made—as in a case I heard of not long ago—one almost gives up hope!

One need hardly point out that, although a medium who merely trusts to luck will probably score a good proportion of “hits” by ringing the changes on a few common types of face, he can greatly increase this proportion by a little adroit “pumping” of the sitter which will give him a guide to at least the general type of face expected, thus enabling him to “deliver the goods,” at any rate approximately, at the next séance.