SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2481, 17 May 1909, Page 8

SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHS.

(Dr Andrew Wilson.)

Of late days there lias been a revival of the topic of "spirit photographs,” which, of course, arc alleged by spiritualists of a certain type to represent and reproduce the forms of departed persons. \ cry naturally, not only the world of sensible people, but also that of scientific men, including expert photographers, has looked askance on the pretensions of spiritualists who have produced such photographs. The obvious difficulty of reproducing on a photographic plate what may he regarded as utterly ethereal manifestations, assuming that spirits are capable of revisiting this orb, was explained on the other and equally hypothetical assumption that spirits could materialise themselves, and so serve to give elf light-waves, without which no photographic reproduction is possible. I’rimarily, therefore, the whole case for the reality of spirit-photography rests on two unjustifiable, or at least two utterly unproved, assertions, and from this preliminary standpoint, the matter, appearing to be so obviously illogical, is dismissed as unworthy of consideration by science

at large. Recently there came into may hands a copy of the thirty-third number of the Magic Circular, a periodical edited by Mr N. Maskelyne, and devoted to the interests of professional magicians, whose entertainments amuse and startle us as clever exhibitions. Mr Maskelyne devotes an article to the subject of spirit-photogra-phy, and liis remarks, as an expert magician and as an investigator of the claims of spiritualism, arc of a highly instructive kind, lie deals with the matter from the point of view in which the evidence submitted by spiritualists is closely scrutinised, and it cannot be said that they come out of the ordeal save in a condition of rags and tatters. He tells us of one exhibition of spirit-photographs which was actually given in the vestry of his church by a clergyman since deceased. Spirits and angels were illustrated in the reproductions, the figures of the angels being especially noted' as absurd and ludicrous in the extreme. Another exhibition, given by a different person, was criticised by a photographic expert. That the photographs were fraudulent was boldly stated. Some of the prints were left untrimmed, and showed proofs of double and treble exposures of the negatives from which they were printed. By two exposures—a very common photographic trick —you get the so-called unadorned spirit of a dead person beside a living sitter; by a third exposure you get a halo added to the spirit form. In sonic cases the halo did not fit. The spirit and the “aura” were not- “in register,” and the spirit-form was not adjusted perfectly to Ihe space left for it when the drapery (obviously stiff or starched tarlatan) was arranged. Again, the halo was by no means ethereal, filmy, or gauzy. Its outlines were "as hard and definite as the edge of a newspaper.” As Mr Maskelyne observes, this bad workmanship, obvious to the eye of a photographer, “gave away the whole show.” In one case, in which the spirit of Cecil Rhodes was photographically represented, the pronounced indentation in the centre of the chin, a characteristic feature, was not present, although the photographer exclaimed, while the photograph was appearing on the plate, that the figure had “a dimple on the chin.” As he was believed to be unaware of the identity of the spirit the remark was significant; more so when, in the developed picture, the chin showed no indentation whatever!

With Mr Stead, who appears to be acutely affected by a number of occult beliefs, Mr Maskelyne deals very effectively. One of a series of spirit-photographs was claimed by Mr Stead to bo that of Piet Botha, a Boer commandant killed in the war. It was alleged that no one had had access to a real portrait of Piet Botha, Mr Stead saying that “no one in England, so far as I have been able to ascertain, knew that any Piet Botha ever existed.” Critically regarded, Mr Stead’s spirit-photograph was obviously a reproduction, not a direct photograph, Mr Maskelyne states that Botha was killed at the siege of Kimberley on October 24, 1899. Four days later, news of his death arrived in England, and on October 28 the Daily Graphic published a portrait of the deceased. The value of Mr Stead’s assertion regarding the impossibility of a photograph having existed, and that nobody knew of Botha’s existence in England, may he judged from the foregoing details, and also from the fact that as Piet Botha was one of the first Boer Commandants slain in the war, his name and identity were made familiar to the whole world, I have often urged the extreme importance of every statement made regarding occult matters, from dreams and apparitions to spirit-photographs, being thoroughly tested by the rules of ordinary and expert evidence. Few of us have the opportunity to undertake such a task, but when it has been accomplished the result is invariably the same. There is a bursting of the bubble, and relegation of the marvellous to the domain either of the explained commonplace or to that of fraud.

The first four years of a hoy’s life at school matter is a thousand times more to his character than the four years he may spend at a university.