The most striking phenomena associated with what comes under the name of Spiritualism are those connected with photography. It was very naturally thought that nothing was so capable of bringing conviction to the inquirer as a record made by the camera, which might be considered free from all imagination, unconscious cerebration, expectancy, &c., and yet there has been no part of the phenomena that has been more fiercely assailed as being fraudulent. No matter how clear and searching and honest has been the experimenter, if success attends his work suspicion and cruel innuendo invariably follow him. The truths pertaining to the spiritual are not received in the same calm, critical, and philosophic spirit as the discoveries that are presented in other realms. People gladly welcome a new planet, or a new metal, and laud the discoverer; but the explorer in spiritual phenomena is at once set down as either a madman or a fraudulent person. One can scarcely estimate the loss the world has sustained by its want of fair treatment; sensitive souls fear to speak out and tell all they know. Robert Chambers kept his Spiritualism in the background, and walked through life honoured and respected, but he made the battle of unpopular truth all the more difficult to fight for the men and women who did speak out. Spiritualists, though set down as credulous, are as far removed from this condition as it is possible to be; they have had to fight their way step by step, critically examining, but honestly yielding when the facts were too much for them.
Very many photographic artists are in their ranks who have again and again met with strange and weird markings on the sensitive plate, which they could not understand; they have sought only to get at the truth. Fraud lives but for the hour, and the person who has joined the ranks of an unpopular cause knows that a fierce light will beat upon all his actions, so that he need be more than ordinarily cautious in all he sets down; but though bogus spirit pictures can be made, must we cease to present those which are got by honest people under conditions that have been considered perfect? Over twenty years since, in New York, a photographer named Wm. H. Mumler succeeded in getting hundreds of pictures of the so-called dead, which were recognised by their friends as portraits; the great body of people who went to him were total strangers, one of them, thickly veiled, being the wife of the murdered President Lincoln. On the plate was seen her husband and one of her children, who had passed on. I had the good fortune to come in contact with those who went to Mr. Mumler shortly after arriving in New York, and who got test pictures which were beyond cavil or suspicion. In hundreds of cases the camera saw and reported what the physical senses did not cognise.
Mr. Mumler’s success brought him only hardship and excessive pain; he was dragged into the law courts and fiercely assailed as an impostor, but the volume of evidence which was brought in his favour so vindicated his character that he triumphed. In our own country again and again we have had photographers, amateur and professional, who have met with these forms on their plates.
Mr. Hudson, of London, got many test pictures, and a whole crowd of eminent people have vouched for the reality of the likenesses of their deceased friends.
Mr. John Beattie, of Clifton, a retired photographer of twenty years’ experience, a man thoughtful and skilful, along with his friend Dr. Thompson, made experiments in spirit photography for their own private satisfaction, and placed on record details of their patience and ultimate success. Forms again and again, some fragmentary, faint, and shadowy, some full and clear, appeared on the plate, fully attesting that spirit photography was real.
The late editor of Light, Rev. Stainton Moses, M.A., had a most extensive experience, and brought a clear and searching intellect to bear upon it. His series of papers dealing with the subject is careful and complete in all details, and shows with what patience and care the spiritual investigator examines the ground before he gives forth his conclusions. In his experiments he ofttimes saw the figures which afterwards made their appearance on the plate.
My own opportunities for the observation of the reality of the phenomena have been good. Brought into close and daily contact with Mr. David Duguid, through our business relations, I have been able to witness almost all the pictures which have been taken through his mediumship. He has been most averse all the time to give sittings, as he fully knows the amount of suspicion which must gather, and the annoyance that will be created, however successful; yet still he is anxious to perform his share in the work of demonstrating human immortality. It seems hard that the spiritual medium, of all persons, should have the taint of suspicion cast around him. Spiritualists themselves have come from such a sceptical, materialistic side of human experience, that they are suspicious of each bit of phenomena which has not hitherto come under their gaze. It must not be overlooked that the bulk of exposures have been the result of the actions of spiritualists who would have nothing but what is genuine.
Some years since Mr. Duguid yielded to the strong pressure that was brought to bear, and took at intervals pictures on which appeared other forms than those seen by the physical senses. Each effort was not a success. Again and again have we gone into the developing chamber, only to find there was but the physical sitter. On all these occasions we took the utmost care to be able to vouch for the conditions under which they were taken, so as to meet the naturally critical questions which would be put. Mr. Andrew Glendinning, of London, who has been on the closest terms of friendship with Mr. Duguid for over thirty years, used to come down, and at such times the latter yielded to the request for a sitting.
Mr. Glendinning brought his own plates, took every precaution that they should not pass out of his sight—not that he suspected anything wrong, but that he might make his testimony of value. We had on almost every visit the most marked success. During the process I was often conscious of the presence of spirit people before they made their appearance on the plate; people who were known in the flesh and others came in this mysterious way, and clearly showed that death must be some other thing than what was made out by popular theologies. As the Rev. John Page Hopps says, “A future life means persistence of life, means that the spirit self remains a conscious living self when it sheds the muddy vesture of clay.... Such a being, acting from the unseen upon the sphere of what is to us the seen, might, under certain conditions, be able to work what we call miracles.” It was the good fortune of Mr. Glendinning to get beside us on one occasion a most exquisite face of a lady, full of each charm and grace that make up the womanly character. The term angelic might be applied to it. Such a face the seraphic painters have ofttimes drawn, a Raphael might have painted it. From somewhere must have come this form; and Spiritualism demonstrates what Mr. Justice Groves, in The Correlation of Physical Forces, gives as a probable theory, “Myriads of organised beings may exist imperceptible to our vision, even if we were among them.”