Is Spiritualism Based on Fraud? / The Evidence Given by Sir A.C. Doyle and Others Drastically Examined

by Joseph McCabe

It is very possible that the picture ... was conveyed on to the plate from some existing picture. However that may be, it was most certainly supernormal, and not due to any manipulation or fraud.

This is an amazing conclusion. It is not merely "possible," but certain, that the photo, which he says resembles his son, had been printed somewhere before it got on to his plate. The marks are infallible. It is further practically certain that, when the son of so distinguished a novelist died on active service, his photograph would appear in the Press. It is equally certain that mediums, knowing well that Sir Arthur and Lady Doyle would presently seek to get into touch with their dead son, would treasure that photograph. When I add that, as I will explain presently, there is no need at all for the spirit photographer to touch the plate, the reader may judge for himself how much "supernormal" there is about the matter.

Let us glance next at the Gladstone ghost. We are not told if it showed process marks, but, of course, they need not always be looked for. It might be taken direct from a photograph in the case of so well known a couple as the Gladstones. But here again there is a significant weakness. When you turn the photograph upside down, you discover that the photographs of Mr. and Mrs. Wynne are on the lower half of the plate, and inverted! You have to come to this remarkable conclusion, if you follow the Spiritualist theory, that either the highly respectable Mr. and Mrs. Wynne or the perfectly puritanical Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone were standing on their heads! For my part, I decline to believe that Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone have taken to such frivolity in the spirit land. I prefer to think that the spirit photographer has bungled.

But how could it be done if the plate was never in the hands of the photographer? In the early days of Spiritualism faking was easy. You put on an air of piety, and your sitter implicitly trusted you. It was then quite easy to make a ghost, as every photographer knows. Expose a plate for half the required time to a young lady dressed as a ghost, then put the plate away in the dark until a sitter comes and give it a full exposure with him. He is delighted, when the plate is developed, to find a charming lady spirit, of ghostly consistency, beaming upon him. Double development, or skilful manipulation of the plate in the dark room, will give the same result.

This is how the trick was done in the sixties and seventies. A London photographer, Hudson, made large sums by this kind of trickery. It was easily exposed—any person who has dabbled in photography knows it—and often the furniture or carpet behind the ghost could be seen through it.

At last there was a very bad exposure which for a time almost suspended the trade. At Paris there was a particularly gifted photographer medium named Buguet. Not only were his ghosts very artistic, but Spiritualists were able to identify their dead relatives on the photographs. Buguet came to London and did a roaring trade. But early in 1875 the police of Paris carried Buguet off to prison and searched his premises. They found a headless doll or lay figure, and a large variety of heads to fit it. At first Buguet had had confederates who used to creep quietly behind the sitter and impersonate the ghost. Then he used to take a half-exposure photograph of his doll, and so dispense with confederates. He had a very smart clerk at the door who used, in collecting your twenty francs, to get from you a little information about the dead relative you wanted to see. Then Buguet rigged up and dressed a more or less appropriate doll, gave it a half-exposure, and brought the same plate to use for his sitter.

One feature of the trial of Buguet should be carefully borne in mind. Spiritualists are very fond of assuring us that the spirit voice or message or photograph they obtained from a medium was "perfectly recognizable." They scout any suggestion that they could be mistaken. Do they not know the features of their dead son or daughter or wife? During the trial of Buguet scores of these Spiritualists entered the witness-box and swore that they had received exact likenesses of their dead relatives. But Buguet, hoping to get a lighter sentence, confessed that the same group of heads had served every purpose, and the witnesses in his favour were all wrong![11]

Buguet got a year in prison, and for a time trade was poor. But new methods were invented, and spirit photographers are again at work all over the world, and have been for decades. In country places the old method may still be followed. Generally, however, the sitter brings his or her own plate, and is then supposed to be secured against fraud. The next development was easy enough. A prepared plate was substituted for the plate you brought. This trick in turn was discovered, and sitters began to make secret marks on the plates they brought, in order to identify them afterwards. Then the machinery of the ghost was rigged up in the camera itself, and you might bring your own plate and mark it unmistakably with a diamond, if you liked. The ghost appeared on it when it was developed.

There were several ways of doing this. The first was to cut out the figure of the ghost in celluloid or some other almost transparent material and attach it to the lens. When this trick leaked out, a very tiny figure of the ghost, hidden in the camera, was projected through a magnifying glass (a kind of small magic-lantern) on to the plate when it was exposed in the camera. As time went on, sitters began to insist on examining the camera, and these tricks were apt to be discovered. I remember an honest and critical Spiritualist telling me, about ten years ago, that he offered a certain spirit-photographer (who is still at work) five pounds for a spirit-photograph, if the sitter were permitted to see every step of the process. The photographer agreed; but when my friend wanted to examine the camera he at first bluffed, and then returned the money, saying that that was carrying scepticism too far! He had the ghost in his camera.

Your modern Spiritualist friend smiles when you tell him of these tricks. They are prehistoric. To-day you are allowed to examine the camera, bring your own plate, expose it and develop it yourself. The logic of the Spiritualist is here just as defective as ever. Because he has not on this occasion discovered certain forms of trickery which are now well known, he concludes that there was no trickery. As if trickery did not evolve like anything else! Spiritualists were just as certain twenty years ago that there was no possibility of fraud because they brought their own marked plates; but they were cheated every time.