Chapter 5 No.5

You may deceive the human eye, say the advocates of spirit materializations, but you cannot deceive the eye of science, the photographic camera. Then they triumphantly produce the spirit photograph as indubitable evidence of the reality of ghostly materializations. "Spirit photography," says the late Alexandre Herrmann, in an article on magic, published in the Cosmopolitan Magazine, "was the invention of a man in London, and for ten years Spiritualists accepted the pictures as genuine representations of originals in the spirit land.

The snap kodak has superseded the necessity of the explanation of spirit photography."

To be more explicit, there are two ways of producing spirit photographs, by double printing and by double exposure. In the first, the scene is printed from one negative, and the spirit printed in from another. In the second method, the group with the friendly spook in proper position is arranged, and the lens of the camera uncovered, half of the required exposure being given; then the lens is capped, and the person doing duty as the sheeted ghost gets out of sight, and the exposure is completed. The result is very effective when the picture is printed, the real persons being represented sharp and well defined, while the ghost is but a hazy outline, transparent, through which the background shows.

Every one interested in psychic phenomena who makes a pilgrimage to the Capital of the Nation visits the house of Dr. Theodore Hansmann. For ten years Dr. Hansmann has been an ardent student of Spiritualism, and has had sittings with many celebrated mediums. The walls of his office are literally covered with spirit pictures of famous people of history, executed by spirits under supposed test conditions. There are drawings in color by Raphael, Michel Angelo, and others. In one corner of the room is a book-case filled with slates, upon the surfaces of which are messages from the famous dead, attested by their signatures.

In the fall of 1895, a correspondent of the New York Herald interviewed Doctor Hansmann on the subject of spirit photographs, and subsequently visited the United States Bureau of Ethnology, where an interview was had with Mr. Dinwiddie, an expert photographer. Here is the substance of this second interview, published in the Herald, Nov. 9, 1895.

"Dr. Hansmann's collection of 'spirit' photographs is most interesting. There is one with the face of the Empress Josephine, and on the same plate is the head of Professor Darius Lyman, for a long time Chief of the Bureau of Navigation. The head of the Empress Josephine has a diadem around it, and the lights and shadows remind one of the well known portrait of her. On another plate are Grant and Lincoln, Among his other photographs Dr. Hansmann brought out one of a man who was described to me as an Indian agent. Around his head were eleven smaller 'spirit' heads of Indians. In looking at the blue print closely it seemed to me as if I had seen those identical heads-the same as to light, shade and posing-somewhere before.

"I was aided at the Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution by Mr. F. Webb Hodge, the acting director, who on looking at the blue print named the Indians directly; several of the pictures were of Indians still alive. This, of course, immediately disposed of the idea of the blue print Indians being spirits.

FIG. 29-SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPH.

[Taken by the Author.]

"Moreover, Mr. Dinwiddie produced the negatives containing the identical portraits of these Indians and made me several proofs, which on a comparison, feature by feature, light for light, and shade for shade, show unquestionably that the faces on the blue print are copies of the portraits made by the photographer of the Bureau of Ethnology.

"Mr. Dinwiddie asked me to sit down for awhile, and offered to make me some spirit photographs. This he did, and the results obtained may be considered as far better examples of the art of 'spirit' photography than those of the medium, Keeler.

"The matter was very simply done. Mr. Dinwiddie asked one of the ladies from the office to come in, and, she consented to pose as a spirit. She was placed before the camera at a distance of about six feet, a red background was given her, so that it might photograph dark, and she was asked to put on a saintly expression. This she did, and Mr. Dinwiddie gave the plate a half-second exposure. Another head was taken on the other side of the plate in much the same manner. After this was done the other or central photograph was taken with an exposure of four seconds, the plate being rather sensitive.

"The plate was then taken to the dark room and developed. The negative came out very well at first, and the halo was put on afterward, when the plate had been dried. The halo was made by rubbing vignetting paste on the back, thus shutting out the light and leaving the paper its original hue. The white shadowy heads which are frequently shown in black coats, and which the mediums claim cannot be explained, are also done in this manner with vignetting paste, the picture being afterward centred over these places, which will be white, the final result showing soft and indefinite, and giving the required spiritual look.

"Mr. Dinwiddie did not attempt to produce the hazy effect, but this is very easily accomplished in the photograph by taking the spirit heads a trifle out of focus. He claims that all of these apparent spiritual manifestations are but tricks of photography, and ones which might be accomplished by the veriest tyro, if he were to study the matter, and give his time to the experiment. It is only a wonder that the mediums do not do more of it.

"The photograph mediums have always claimed that they were set upon by photographers for business reasons, but Mr. Dinwiddie is employed by the government and has no interests whatever in such a dispute."

FIG. 30-SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPH BY PRETENDED MEDIUM.

The eminent authority on photography, Mr. Walter E. Woodbury, gives many interesting exposes of mediumistic photographs in his work, "Photographic Amusements," which the student of the subject would do well to consult. Fig. 30, taken from "Photographic Amusements" is a reproduction of a "spirit" photograph made by a photographer claiming to be a medium. Says Mr. Woodbury: "Fortunately, however, we were in this case able to expose the fraud. Mr. W. M. Murray, a prominent member of the Society of Amateur Photographers of New York, called our attention to the similarity between one of the 'spirit' images and a portrait painting by Sichel, the artist. A reproduction of the picture (Fig 31) is given herewith, and it will be seen at once that the 'spirit' image is copied from it."