Much controversy followed this exposure; while many declared that spirit photographs were an utter fraud, others considered that though some were genuine, mediums frequently obtained their spirits by trickery in order not to disappoint their sitters. Few went so far as to declare their belief that the phenomena were all genuine, and these few were mostly those who had identified as their dead relatives the extras presented to them. Ingenious explanations were offered by them of the appearances pointed out by Beattie; the spirit aura was, they declared, doubly refracting; hence the legs of a chair might, by atmospheric refraction, appear through the legs of its occupant. It is possible that the unscientific were impressed by such explanations. Support was certainly lent to them for a time by the statements of Mr. Russell, of Kingston-on-Thames. Working as an amateur for his own satisfaction, he declared that he had obtained spirit photographs showing evident signs of double exposure, whereas only one had taken place. Challenged to produce his plates, however, he demurred, and eventually said that they had been accidentally destroyed.
Disgusted by the trickery he had detected in Hudson, Beattie determined to experiment for himself as to whether genuine spirit photographs could actually be obtained. He accordingly set to work with some friends, one of whom was reputed to be a medium, and held many séances, exposing dozens of plates with but little result. He procured as his dark-room assistant a certain Josty, whose character, unfortunately, appears not to have been above suspicion. Thenceforward streaks and splashes of light were obtained on some of the plates, though the séances were mostly blanks. Josty discovered himself to be possessed of clairvoyant faculties, and declared that he saw spirits at the séances; the marks on the plates would then appear in the positions he had indicated. These marks had only the very slightest resemblance to human figures: one is described as being like a dragon. Out of several hundred plates, thirty-two bore these marks. Beattie’s integrity was never challenged; but it has been suggested that Josty produced the smudges on the plates—as he very easily could do—in order to keep himself in employment of a light and lucrative character. In any case, the results obtained were so trifling, and so different from the usual professional medium’s photographs, as to be chiefly of value as negative evidence.
Similar experiments were made by Dr. Williams, of Haywards Heath. He exposed plates, in the hope of obtaining spirit extras, over a period of eighteen months. Out of many hundreds, he obtained three plates with unexplained marks on them, one of which bore some resemblance to two eyes and a nose. He also claimed that a complete human figure developed on one of his plates, only to disappear again; this could scarcely have had any objective existence, since there was no trace of it in the finished negative. The value of his experiments, also, can only be considered as against the occurrence of spirit photography where trickery plays no part.
In the summer of 1874 there came to London a Parisian photographer named Buguet, who represented himself as able to photograph spirits. Besides being a more skilful photographer than his predecessors, he appears also to have had a sense of humour. The spirit faces of Dickens, Charles I., and other celebrities appeared in his photographs! His spirits had clearly-defined features, and were much better productions than anything that had appeared before. Many well-known people sat to him, and were duly rewarded with the spirit features of their equally well-known friends. Next year he returned to Paris, and, continuing in business there, produced among other things a photograph of Stainton Moses, the spiritualist, while the latter was lying in a trance in London, his spirit being supposed to have visited Buguet’s studio in Paris.
Before he had been back long, however, the French authorities intervened. His studio was raided by the police and a large stock of cardboard heads, a lay figure, and other incriminating paraphernalia were found. Buguet was arrested and charged with fraud. At the trial he made a complete confession. All his spirits had, he said, been obtained by double exposure. At first his assistants had acted as the ghosts, but this soon became dangerous on account of constant repetition of the same features, and he procured the lay figure and cardboard heads for the purpose. He also explained how he employed his assistants to extract all possible information from the sitters, as to the facial characteristics of the spirits they were expecting. And then came the extraordinary feature of the trial. In spite of the damning material evidence against him, and of his own confession, witness after witness came forward to defend him! They said they had sat to him and obtained unquestionable likenesses of their dead relations, and had satisfied themselves that no tricks were played upon them. In spite of Buguet assuring them in court that they had been deceived, they maintained that it could not be so. Buguet pointed out to the court one face which had been recognised as the mother of one sitter, the sister of a second, and the friend of a third. One spirit, recognised by a sitter as his lifelong friend, was declared by another man to be an excellent likeness of his still-living—and much annoyed—father-in-law. Buguet was convicted and sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment and a fine of 100 francs. It was maintained by spiritualists in England that he had been bribed to make a false confession; and after the expiry of his sentence he appears to have told the same tale. This, however, quite fails to explain the finds made at his studio by the French police.
At the time of Buguet’s trial, another spirit photographer, Parkes by name, was practising in London. He never produced photographs of any value, as he gave but little opportunity of watching his proceedings in the dark-room; nor were many of his extras recognised. Nevertheless there are certain points of interest in his career. Some of his plates showed evident marks of double exposure; he was adroit enough to write articles to the spiritualistic papers, drawing attention to this fact and suggesting theories to account for it. It had been previously assumed by spiritualists that the spirit forms, although invisible to the eye, were present at the side of or behind the sitter, and that their images were projected on to the plate by refraction through the lens in the ordinary way. Hence their images on the plate would be inverted, like the image of the sitter. Parkes, however, described an experiment, which he professed to have carried out, throwing doubt on this. He placed, he said, a mirror obliquely across the camera between the lens and the plate, so as to project the image of the sitter and background on to a second plate at the side of the camera—the same principle employed in the viewing screen of the modern reflex camera. He said that the position of the spirit photograph was unaffected by the mirror, and that the extra still appeared on the plate at the back of the camera, while the sitter and background were naturally only photographed on the side plate. He further declared that the spirit was not affected by the lens, and appeared erect on the back plate, instead of inverted as a normal photograph would be. The absurdity of this statement is evident when we realise that in his ordinary photographs sitter and spirit appeared the same way up—i.e., both inverted on the plate; in order to effect this and comply with his other statement, the spirits would have to be standing on their heads beside the sitters! Now Parkes also professed to have clairvoyant power, and claimed actually to see the spirits standing with the sitters; as he never mentions them adopting the inverted attitude we may safely assume that they did not put themselves to this discomfort. One, at least, of Parkes’ statements must therefore have been false.
On one occasion, however, his spirit extra did appear upside down. The plate—supplied by the sitter—was loaded into the camera by Parkes in the usual way, and all was ready for the exposure when a photographer present requested that the plate be inverted in the camera. This was done, and the exposure made; with the result that on the developed plate the spirit was inverted with regard to the sitter. It was indeed fortunate for Parkes’ reputation that the company present were able to affirm that the plate on which this occurred “had never been in Parkes’ possession before”!
Since 1875 a number of spirit photographers have practised in this country, but few have attained any note. Not many people have considered their claims seriously, any critical investigation soon finding cause for suspicion, if not actual evidence, of fraud. Perhaps the two best known are Boursnell, who was taking spirit photographs in London during the first decade of this century, and Hope, of Crewe, who has now been practising for many years, and has attained considerable proficiency in the art. The conditions allowed have never been such as to preclude fraud, and the general method of procedure and results obtained have been so similar to those of their predecessors as to need no separate description. In 1909 a Commission was appointed, under the auspices of the Daily Mail, to investigate the subject. The Commission consisted of three spiritualists and three expert photographers; at the conclusion of the investigation the photographers reported with regard to the results obtained that “they would not testify to their supernatural production; they bore on the face of them evidence of the way in which they had been produced.” They pointed out that some of the plates had been exposed twice, as shown by the marks on the edges caused by two different patterns of dark slide. The spiritualists, on the other hand, reported that “the photographers were not in a proper frame of mind” to obtain results.
In America the movement has always found rather more adherents than in this country. Spirit photography has been practised in different parts of the United States practically since Mumler’s time to the present day; the same medium usually producing other kinds of spirit phenomena as well. The conditions under which most of these photographs have been taken, and the ridiculous results obtained, renders them unworthy of serious consideration. It is quite usual to find in the background of these photographs a dozen or more heads, of all shapes and sizes, and with all kinds of headgear; bunches of flowers often appear, and even a spirit buttonhole sometimes ornaments the lapel of the sitter’s coat! An amusing account is given by Hereward Carrington[3] of a visit to a medium of this type at Lily Dale in 1907:
“On arriving at Mr. Norman’s house I was obliged to wait for some time on the verandah, as he was busy inside the house with a ‘customer.’ When he came out I was invited to sit ‘just where I was,’ and the medium disappeared into the house, and the next minute came out carrying a large camera and two plates, already in the slide, prepared. There was a white chalk-mark on one side of the double-back plate slide, and this side was carefully inserted foremost. Mr. Norman erased the chalk-mark with his finger as he inserted the slide into the camera. I posed, and the photograph was taken.