Psychic phenomena

by Edward T. Bennett

The most notable exception to this which I am able to quote is that of the late Mr. J. Traill Taylor, who was for a considerable time the editor of the British Journal of Photography. The following quotations are from a paper on "Spirit Photography" by Mr. Taylor. It was originally read before the London and Provincial Photographic Association in March 1893, and was reprinted in the British Journal of Photography for 26th May 1904, shortly after Mr. Taylor's death.

"Spirit photography, so called, has of late been asserting its existence in such a manner and to such an extent as to warrant competent men in making an investigation, conducted under stringent test conditions, into the circumstances under which such photographs are produced, and exposing the fraud should it prove to be such, instead of pooh-poohing it as insensate because we do not understand how it can be otherwise—a position that scarcely commends itself as intelligent or philosophical. If, in what follows, I call it 'spirit photography' instead of psychic photography, it is only in deference to a nomenclature that extensively prevails.... I approach the subject merely as a photographer."

Mr. Traill Taylor then gives a history of the earlier manifestations of "Spirit Photography," and goes on to explain how striking phenomena in photographing what is invisible to the eye may be produced by the agency of fluorescence. He quotes the demonstration by Dr. Gladstone, F.R.S., at the Bradford Meeting of the British Association in 1873, showing that invisible drawings on white cards have produced bold and clear photographs when no eye could see the drawings themselves. Hence, as Mr. Taylor says, the photographing of an invisible image is not scientifically impossible.

Mr. Taylor then proceeds to describe some personal experiments. He says: "For several years I have experienced a strong desire to ascertain by personal investigation the amount of truth in the ever-recurring allegation that figures other than those visually present in the room appeared on a sensitive plate.... Mr. D., of Glasgow, in whose presence psychic photographs have long been alleged to be obtained, was lately in London on a visit, and a mutual friend got him to consent to extend his stay in order that I might try to get a psychic photograph under test conditions. To this he willingly agreed. My conditions were exceedingly simple, were courteously expressed to the host, and entirely acquiesced in. They were, that I for the nonce would assume them all to be tricksters, and to guard against fraud, should use my own camera and unopened packages of dry plates purchased from dealers of repute, and that I should be excused from allowing a plate to go out of my own hand till after development unless I felt otherwise disposed; but that as I was to treat them as under suspicion, so must they treat me, and that every act I performed must be in the presence of two witnesses; nay, that I would set a watch upon my own camera in the guise of a duplicate one of the same focus—in other words, I would use a binocular stereoscopic camera and dictate all the conditions of operation....

"Dr. G. was the first sitter, and for a reason known to myself, I used a monocular camera. I myself took the plate out of a packet just previously ripped up under the surveillance of my two detectives. I placed the slide in my pocket, and exposed it by magnesium ribbon which I held in my own hand, keeping one eye, as it were, on the sitter, and the other on the camera. There was no background. I myself took the plate from the dark slide, and, under the eyes of the two detectives, placed it in the developing dish. Between the camera and the sitter a female figure was developed, rather in a more pronounced form than that of the sitter.... I submit this picture.... I do not recognise her or any of the other figures I obtained, as like any one I know....

"Many experiments of like nature followed; on some plates were abnormal appearances, on others none. All this time, Mr. D. the medium, during the exposure of the plates, was quite inactive....

"The psychic figures behaved badly. Some were in focus. Others not so. Some were lighted from the right, while the sitter was so from the left; some were comely, ... others not so. Some monopolised the major portion of the plate, quite obliterating the material sitters. Others were as if an atrociously-badly vignetted portrait ... were held up behind the sitter. But here is the point:—Not one of these figures which came out so strongly in the negative, was visible in any form or shape to me during the time of exposure in the camera, and I vouch in the strongest manner for the fact that no one whatever had an opportunity of tampering with any plate anterior to its being placed in the dark slide or immediately preceding development. Pictorially they are vile, but how came they there?

"Now all this time, I imagine you are wondering how the stereoscopic camera was behaving itself as such. It is due to the psychic entities to say that whatever was produced on one half of the stereoscopic plates was produced on the other, alike good or bad in definition. But on a careful examination of one which was rather better than the other, ... I deduce this fact, that the impressing of the spirit form was not consentaneous with that of the sitter. This I consider an important discovery. I carefully examined one in the stereoscope, and found that, while the two sitters were stereoscopic per se, the psychic figure was absolutely flat. I also found that the psychic figure was at least a millimetre higher up in one than the other. Now, as both had been simultaneously exposed, it follows to demonstration that, although both were correctly placed vertically in relation to the particular sitter behind whom the figure appeared, and not so horizontally, this figure had not only not been impressed on the plate simultaneously with the two gentlemen forming the group, but had not been formed by the lens at all, and that therefore the psychic image might be produced without a camera. I think this is a fair deduction. But still the question obtrudes: How came these figures there? I again assert that the plates were not tampered with by either myself or any one present. Are they crystallisations of thought? Have lens and light really nothing to do with their formation? The whole subject was mysterious enough on the hypothesis of an invisible spirit, whether a thought projection or an actual spirit, being really there in the vicinity of the sitter, but it is now a thousand times more so....

"In the foregoing I have confined myself as closely as possible to narrating how I conducted a photographic experiment open to every one to make, avoiding stating any hypothesis or belief of my own on the subject."

Two years later, in May 1895, the spiritualists held a General Conference in London, the proceedings of which extended over several days. At one of the meetings Mr. Traill Taylor read a paper under the title—"Are Spirit Photographs necessarily the Photographs of Spirits?" An abstract of this paper appears in Light (18th May 1895), and it is printed in full in Borderland (July 1895). At the commencement of the paper, Mr. Taylor explained that light is the agent in the production of an ordinary photograph; but he says: "I have ascertained, to my own satisfaction at any rate, that light so called, so far as concerns the experiments I have made, has nothing to do with the production of a psychic picture, and that the lens and camera of the photographer are consequently useless incumbrances." Following this up, Mr. Taylor says: "It was the realisation of this that enabled me at a certain seance recently held, at which many cameras were in requisition, to obtain certain abnormal figures on my plates when all others failed to do so. After withdrawing the slide from the camera, I wrapped it up in the velvet focussing cloth and requested the medium to hold it in his hand, giving him no clue as to my reason for doing so. A general conversation favoured the delay in proceeding to the developing room for about five or more minutes, during which the medium still held the wrapped-up slide. I then relieved him of it, and in the presence of others applied the developer, which brought to view figures in addition to that of the sitter."