The Medium: Stop a moment—do you mean that it is my body or my spirit?
Answer: We mean your spirit-aura. Your body could not be taken without your being either directly in front of the camera or reflected into its focus. Perhaps it will be better to explain some of the peculiarities attending this phase, as it involves many points of interest. You were standing in front of the camera for about a quarter of an hour before the picture was taken or the plate prepared. In obedience to a suggestion, you were awaiting the approach of the spirit who told you he could be photographed, and, in order to retain your passivity, you remained standing where you were. When you saw him seated you went to prepare the plate, but not without leaving your emanation behind, which, on the plate being exposed, was duly photographed. The proof is easy. Again stand in the same position for, say, ten minutes, then leave the room, and let a good clairvoyant be introduced and questioned as to what he sees, when he will immediately describe you as supplying the place you have vacated, with all the accessories pertaining thereto. But although he could at all times see this, your emanation could not at all times be impressed on the plate. Returning to another matter: Man does not enjoy only one image of himself, but six, embracing three individualities, viz., body, soul, and spirit; and three emanations proceeding therefrom, respectively, body-odyle, spirit-aura, and soul-essence. These must on no account be confounded with each other, as is too often the case. Respecting the last—soul and soul-essence—as it is more remote, being seldom brought into play outside the human tenement (unless under peculiar circumstances), we do not intend speaking of it in connexion with the present topic; so direct your attention more particularly to the remaining four, partly in explanation of their attributes, and partly in reference to photography. First, then, the body is most easily impressed upon the plate, requiring fewer vibrations than its odylic form, after which, in order, come spirit, spirit-aura, soul and soul-essence, the last requiring millions of vibrations, which, although costing more effort, takes no more time, in many cases. It depends on the sphere of the spirit. You may form an idea of this by taking into account the incredible power of motion which spirits possess. Now, the odylic emanation may be projected by the will from the material body, but the spirit cannot itself be so projected; it must be, as it were, allowed to flow forth of its own accord. Similarly, the spirit, when thus free to move, can project its aura in like manner. In both these cases the emanation, by its velocity, becomes from necessary friction respectively electrified, or magnetic and spiritualised; that is to say, the emanations become endowed with a certain amount of vital energy, life-force, or, in fact, of existence. The mere life-force does not imply intelligence also, but it does when the emanation is spiritualised. Man’s will is from his spirit; hence, the will can project the odyle, but not the spirit, for when the spirit is absent the will is absent, dormant in reality (as the soul never interferes with the will), and the trance state results. It is quite possible for the spirit, under favourable conditions, to project its aura at the same time as the projection of the odyle. The two emanations coming into contact would form a union of the life-element with the thinking principle. We do not mean with thought, but with thought-material—thought being supplied only by the spirit, the ideas or germs of thought being suggested by the soul and elaborated by the spirit. Without this constant emanation, or fluid impulse (viz., the soul-essence) to urge it, the spirit would not think; it would be inactive, the soul-essence being its vivifying impulse to activity. Now, when the odyle and aura have coalesced, a new body, complete in all its functions, is not therefore the result, but merely a body-elementary, i.e., imbued with life-force, and furnished with thought-material, minus thought. This, then, is the eidolon, image, you occasionally hear of. Still, you must not suppose it to be severed from the parent body; by no means: it is linked to it by attraction, gravitation, and affinity, or that element of which you can form ideas for practical purposes, but of which you do not understand the nature. But, you may say, there are instances of eidolons speaking; now, if it has not thought, how can it speak rationally? Let us explain: thoughts are produced by vibrations of their materials, and vibration is produced by the soul-essence through the spirit, the soul being the prime reservoir of motion (intellectually). Now, suppose the eidolon to be questioned by the person to whom it appeared, this question being the result of thought, vibration would communicate the motion to the intellectual materials of the eidolon, and this vibration would be instantly felt by the parent body, and an answer returned accordingly.
In reference to the suggestion that spirit manifestations may be the work of eidolons, the reply was: “As departed spirits do exist, and can communicate with mortals—of which there is abundant proof—there is no need to suppose a state of things which does not exist in order to account for what does.”
An explanation was also given as to how eidolons are formed, but that does not concern our present subject.
Some investigators seem to think that the same spirit forms ought not to appear on plates with different people, and that if they do so the circumstance warrants suspicion, if it is not even a proof of fraud. This is an entire mistake, and a mistake which can only be made by those who have not investigated the matter in a practical manner for any considerable length of time. Apply the same reasoning to materialisation, or to direct spirit writing, and see what it will lead to. Mr. E. A. D. Opie, of Adelaide, in a lecture on “Spirit Photography,” delivered on July 1st, 1891, before the Adelaide Spiritualistic Association, made this remark: “It is necessary to accept all second-hand reports of this phase of Spiritualism with more than usual reserve, as, in one instance at least, I have discovered, on comparing reports of the obtaining of the same picture by different people.” Mr. Opie in these words probably expresses an opinion held by many others, held in London as well as in Adelaide. And what are we to infer from it? That if two sitters get on their plates a picture of the same spirit form, it will be a proof of fraud? Not at all. Of course, if the pictures have been produced by a dishonest operator, they may be fraudulent. That is not a thing to dispute. But the fact is that there are in existence a number of genuine spirit photographs in which the same abnormal images are found with various sitters. Most of these have differences in size, in attitude, and in spirit drapery on the forms, but the likenesses are identical. Some of them have been taken in different places, with different cameras, with plates purchased in different cities and used by careful investigators.
Mr. Opie’s lecture was published in Adelaide as a pamphlet of twenty-two pages; it is the result of much reading, and it is but fair to Mr. Opie to note that he had no practical acquaintance with the subject.
Mr. Parkes gave some séances in 1875 in Mr. Burns’s rooms, 15 Southampton Row. On one occasion three sitters got spirit forms on three plates. At the same meeting I requested that I might be photographed. A clairvoyante sitting near me said I ought to get something good, for she could see a number of spirits near me. When the plate was developed there were eleven spirit forms on it.