Photos and Spiritualism.
by Andy Hagerty
“Spirit Photography”
In a previous article on this site we covered the basics of what and when Daguerreotype Death portraits were taken. In this part we will go deeper into the why they are interesting to myself and many members of the Paranormal community. I will try to limit myself to the photographic aspects of the movement, and save the subject of Victorian spiritualism for another date. One offshoot of the death portraits were the “Spirit Photos” of the mid 1860’s till they sort of petered out in the mid 1920’s. Spirit photos differed from death portraits as usually the subject was a living person and the spirit was captured hovering nearby.
In this time period, Child mortality was very high, and a post-mortem photograph might have been the only image of the child the family ever had. The average life expectancy of just 40, with a third of all babies dying before their first birthday. There were still frequent outbreaks of various fatal epidemics, which swept thru the countryside periodically. Funeral homes were not yet in existence, so most viewings were held in the household in the living room. People died in their beds, were washed and dressed and prepared for burial by loved ones. This was also a time before official death records, so touching the deceased during the viewing was commonplace, both to confirm the identity and that the person was in fact deceased. The standard of living remained very poor, and so families remained very close knit in order to support each other through the difficult times. Death was a much closer and constant companion for people.
Society as a whole was in a “cult of mourning“. Everything was prescribed from what kind of clothing you could wear, how long you were to mourn and the activities you could do during the period of mourning. For example, a Widow had a period of 2 years which started with “full mourning” when they could only wear black material and a weeping veil, which lasted for a year and a day. Then they went into “Half mourning” For the next nine months, they could add some small ornamentation to their outfits, black lace or some mourning jewelry. Mourning
jewelry was often made from Jet or the hair of the deceased. For the final of the 2 year period of “half mourning” the color of the clothing could slowly lighten. If a parent lost a child the period of full mourning would be nine months, followed by three months of half mourning. It was also prescribed that as soon as the person “shuffled off their mortal coil” that all clocks would be stopped, the curtains drawn, mirrors covered and all members don black clothing, if black mourning clothing was not available then they would dye their current clothing.
No one defines this “cult” as the Era’s namesake, Queen Victoria herself. She spent the majority of her reign mourning the death of her late husband Prince Albert in 1861. Stanley Weintraub, one of Victoria’s biographers, noted:
Mirroring her mourning, the Household, at the Queen’s instruction, went about
in black crêpe, broadcloth, and bombazine, underscoring the gloom. For a year
after Albert’s death, no member of her Household could appear in public except
in mourning garb, a practice that might have continued indefinitely had her
ladies not sunk so much in morale that Victoria relented sufficiently to permit
"semi-mourning" colors of white, mauve, and grey. Even royal servants were
obliged to wear a black crêpe band on the left arm until 1869.
A majority of Victorians in the western world were Christian. This implies a deep belief the dead were gathered up by the Almighty and transported to a better place for all eternity. With life beings so harsh and short, Victorians would have been very open to the idea of spiritual obeservation after death. The knowledge that lost loved ones would be saved by God, and could be communicated with was a very attractive prospect to many grief stricken relatives. This led to a rise in Spiritualism, with many different aspects, one of which was the belief that the ghosts of loved ones sometimes appeared in photos. It was a societal norm that life and death were separated not by a doorway but by a gossamer veil, something the merest breeze could draw aside. Children were often posed with their favorite toy, which was also believed to hold the essence of the deceased forever.
The camera was almost magical in it’s ability to paint an instant portrait. This was not a light undertaking due to scarcity and cost. There was no
commercially mass produced cameras and to be a photographer using Daguerreotype, you had to get a license in England. You went to a portrait studio in your best clothing for your living portraits. For the memorial portraits of the photographers would often advertise they could arrive within two hours for the portrait. The Photo was believed to be able to capture a person’s soul so in a way it kept them alive forever to everyone who held them dear. Some parents who had death paintings of their children made, had those paintings photographed in effort to capture the eerily lifelike quality of the daguerreotype, as well as its permanence.
An 1849 article praising the ability of the daguerreotype to capture the life of the dead.
Not a great while ago, one of our Daguerreotypists observed in his rooms an
old lady in deep mourning. She was a stranger, and was looking with evident
eagerness along the walls at the various portraits that were exhibited as
specimens of the art. All at once she uttered a low exclamation, and sank half
fainting upon a sofa. Water was brought to her, and after a little while she was
restored to self-possession. She then stated that news of the death of her only
daughter, a resident of the west, had been received by her a few days before.
Remembering that a likeness had been taken a short time previous to her going to
the west, the faint hope had crossed her mind that there might be a duplicate in
the rooms of the Daguerreotypist. She had found it, and gazed once more into the
almost speaking face of her child!
Victorians lived in an age of growing scientific certainty. People began to realize that science could be used as a tool to solve problems that had vexed humanity for millennia. With passive camera operators, long exposure times — it was widely felt that a photographic image was a completely objective record, untainted by human bias. Eadweard Muybridge's famous photographic series of a galloping horse demonstrated that the flat, uninvolved gaze of the camera could capture things the human eye could not see. At this time there was a hotly debated issue, if all four legs of a horse came off the ground during a gallop. Painters of the day always had their horses with at least one foot on the ground. The action of the horse was so fast that people were unable to break down the action with the naked eye. With one series of photographs in 1872 the issue was solved. Horses do indeed have all four hooves off the ground at one time during the gallop. It was these two aspects of the new technology, its supposed scientific inviolability and its ability to freeze images invisible to the human eye that contributed to its use in the sciences as well as among adherents of the new religion of Spiritualism.
Spiritualists saw themselves in a decidedly scientific light. Science had recently found invisible forces in Electricity and magnetism, so it was reasoned science would also soon explain "life forces" that survived the body after death. Photography played a large part in their experiments aiming to prove the existence of ghosts. Not unlike current theories used in the paranormal field to this day. Victorian era people were quick to accept the reality of the spirits in the photographs as a new form of science. Believing as they did that photography was resistant to human manipulation, the invention of photoshop being a few years away.
Early photographers were aware of the faint ghostly images produced when the subject of the photograph moved while the plate was being exposed. It was only a matter of time that someone would use this dishonestly to make a profit. In 1861 a photographer named William Mumler (1832-1884) began producing spirit photographs in his Boston studio. Allegedly using double exposures and various other tricks, Mumler made quite a comfortable living taking pictures of grieving sitters with ethereal friends and relatives hovering nearby. He even took the infamous photograph of Mary Todd Lincoln in which the supposed spirit of her assassinated husband stands behind her with his hands resting on her shoulders. He eventually came under the scrutiny of authorities, and was charged with fraud in 1869. One of his chief accusers was PT Barnum of circus fame. Barnum hired Abraham Bogardus to create a picture that appeared to show Barnum with the ghost of Abraham Lincoln to demonstrate the ease with which the photos could be created. Oddly, not because he supposedly faked the pictures, but because the spirits in
the photo’s were not usually recognizable as the friend or relative of the living sitter and the discovery that some of Mumler's 'ghosts' were in fact
living people, is what was the issue. Although his photos have been discounted as possible frauds, he did let skeptics and photographic experts examine his equipment and procedures, and they were unable to determine how he captured his images. He was acquitted of all charges due to lack of proof, though was ruined by the accusations and died in poverty.
William Hope (1863–1933) is famous spiritual photographer. William was a member of the Crewe Circle, which was a group of spiritualists from Crewe, England. The members appeared to be able to register the faces of spirits on photographic plates simply by holding the plates in their hands. It was further claimed that the plates could be furnished by Hope’s clients themselves.
The Society for the Study of Supernormal Pictures (S.S.S.P. ) was established in 1918 to study promote the scientific study and investigation of supernormal pictures. It was composed largely of professional photographers. Abraham Wallace served as the first president, and was assisted by 3 vice presidents, one of which was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (of Sherlock Holmes fame). Doyle was also an ardent spiritualist and after 1919 a strong advocate of the spirit photographs produced by William Hope of Crewe.
In may 1920 this society issued the following statement:
The members here present desire to place on record the fact that after many
tests and the examination of thousands of pictures, they are unanimously of the
opinion that results have been obtained supernormally on sensitive photographic
plates under reliable test conditions. At present the members do not undertake
to explain how the results have been obtained, but they assert that they have
undoubtedly been secured under conditions excluding the possibility of
fraud.
The Society for Psychical Research (S.P.R.) which was founded in 1882 to conduct organized scholarly research into human experiences that challenge contemporary scientific models. This group was founded be a group of scientists to investigate “that large body of debatable phenomena designated by such terms as mesmeric, psychical and "spiritualistic”, and to do so “in the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned enquiry which has enabled Science to solve so many problems” . The society took an interest in the Crewe Circle. 1922 an investigator named Harry price devised a plan that consisted of presenting Hope with a set of glass negatives that had been secretly marked with X-rays. The trap worked: when Hope returned the plates, the one containing the “extra” spirit image showed no sign of the markings; this meant that Hope had switched a
prepared plate for the secretly marked one. Harry wrote an Expose in the society’s journal and stated “ it can, we think, hardly be denied that Mr
William Hope has been found guilty of deliberately substituting his own plates for those of a sitter…. It implies that the medium brings to the sitting a duplicate slide and faked plates for fraudulent purposes.”
Conan Doyle responded first with a series of tests that (in a letter dated Apr 6th to Houdini the magician):
We seem to have knocked the bottom out of the Hope “exposure.” The plates were marked by X-rays and we find by experiment that X-ray marks disappear on a 20-second exposure, which was the exact time given. Our time is continually wasted over nonsense of this sort, but I suppose it has to be done.
Then with a book called The Case for Spirit Photography after extensive third party testing showed the durability of X-ray markings. Doyle's book sets forth a conspiracy theory for the entrapment of William Hope in that he was framed. Both sides argued their case until Hopes death in 1932, often with bitter results. Harry Price wrote in his autobiography “ Confessions of a Ghost Hunter“ - “Arthur Conan Doyle and his friends . . . abused me for years for exposing Hope.” William hope continued to make spirit photography until his death although many others resigned from the field under the scrutiny of the S.P.R.. In 1926, investigator Harry Price would write, "Our photographic mediums are becoming fewer. One after another, they are being exposed. Supernormal photography is the only phenomenon that will not stand up to the 'strict test' of pure scientific research..." S.S.S.P. ceased operations in 1923. The S.P.R. continues as a society to this very day.
An interesting footnote to the story. Dr. T. Glen Hamilton photographed a session with the medium Mrs. Mary Marshall in which she appears to be extruding Ectoplasm during a session. In the photo Sir Conan Doyle is seen in the upper portion of the "ectoplasm" shown exuding from the medium's nose. The photographer, was a prominent physician and political leader from Winnipeg who conducted research into psychic phenomena between 1918 and 1934.
The Victorian era spiritual foundation combined with a new attachment to the objectivity of the scientific method produced a strange hybrid of science and metaphysics which can still be felt to the present day. One photographer was unable to be disproved by experts, who could not say how he got his pictures. However as he had a rich and famous adversary and pictures like his could be produced in fraudulent ways, he died disgraced and in poverty. Another photographer was found to have used any means of fraud, and because he had the protection of the rich and powerful, he died mostly unaffected. This Era which produced such miracles as the “unsinkable” Titanic . Science advanced so far to state that it is scientifically impossible for a hurricane to hit Galveston Texas, much to the dismay of the people who didn’t evacuate. The Era has a message that is still valid today. Just cause you cannot prove it, does not mean it does not exist. Just cause you can reproduce something like captured
evidence, does not mean it was faked. Every time Science thinks it has all the answers, the universe throws science a curve ball.
In this time period, Child mortality was very high, and a post-mortem photograph might have been the only image of the child the family ever had. The average life expectancy of just 40, with a third of all babies dying before their first birthday. There were still frequent outbreaks of various fatal epidemics, which swept thru the countryside periodically. Funeral homes were not yet in existence, so most viewings were held in the household in the living room. People died in their beds, were washed and dressed and prepared for burial by loved ones. This was also a time before official death records, so touching the deceased during the viewing was commonplace, both to confirm the identity and that the person was in fact deceased. The standard of living remained very poor, and so families remained very close knit in order to support each other through the difficult times. Death was a much closer and constant companion for people.
Society as a whole was in a “cult of mourning“. Everything was prescribed from what kind of clothing you could wear, how long you were to mourn and the activities you could do during the period of mourning. For example, a Widow had a period of 2 years which started with “full mourning” when they could only wear black material and a weeping veil, which lasted for a year and a day. Then they went into “Half mourning” For the next nine months, they could add some small ornamentation to their outfits, black lace or some mourning jewelry. Mourning
jewelry was often made from Jet or the hair of the deceased. For the final of the 2 year period of “half mourning” the color of the clothing could slowly lighten. If a parent lost a child the period of full mourning would be nine months, followed by three months of half mourning. It was also prescribed that as soon as the person “shuffled off their mortal coil” that all clocks would be stopped, the curtains drawn, mirrors covered and all members don black clothing, if black mourning clothing was not available then they would dye their current clothing.
No one defines this “cult” as the Era’s namesake, Queen Victoria herself. She spent the majority of her reign mourning the death of her late husband Prince Albert in 1861. Stanley Weintraub, one of Victoria’s biographers, noted:
Mirroring her mourning, the Household, at the Queen’s instruction, went about
in black crêpe, broadcloth, and bombazine, underscoring the gloom. For a year
after Albert’s death, no member of her Household could appear in public except
in mourning garb, a practice that might have continued indefinitely had her
ladies not sunk so much in morale that Victoria relented sufficiently to permit
"semi-mourning" colors of white, mauve, and grey. Even royal servants were
obliged to wear a black crêpe band on the left arm until 1869.
A majority of Victorians in the western world were Christian. This implies a deep belief the dead were gathered up by the Almighty and transported to a better place for all eternity. With life beings so harsh and short, Victorians would have been very open to the idea of spiritual obeservation after death. The knowledge that lost loved ones would be saved by God, and could be communicated with was a very attractive prospect to many grief stricken relatives. This led to a rise in Spiritualism, with many different aspects, one of which was the belief that the ghosts of loved ones sometimes appeared in photos. It was a societal norm that life and death were separated not by a doorway but by a gossamer veil, something the merest breeze could draw aside. Children were often posed with their favorite toy, which was also believed to hold the essence of the deceased forever.
The camera was almost magical in it’s ability to paint an instant portrait. This was not a light undertaking due to scarcity and cost. There was no
commercially mass produced cameras and to be a photographer using Daguerreotype, you had to get a license in England. You went to a portrait studio in your best clothing for your living portraits. For the memorial portraits of the photographers would often advertise they could arrive within two hours for the portrait. The Photo was believed to be able to capture a person’s soul so in a way it kept them alive forever to everyone who held them dear. Some parents who had death paintings of their children made, had those paintings photographed in effort to capture the eerily lifelike quality of the daguerreotype, as well as its permanence.
An 1849 article praising the ability of the daguerreotype to capture the life of the dead.
Not a great while ago, one of our Daguerreotypists observed in his rooms an
old lady in deep mourning. She was a stranger, and was looking with evident
eagerness along the walls at the various portraits that were exhibited as
specimens of the art. All at once she uttered a low exclamation, and sank half
fainting upon a sofa. Water was brought to her, and after a little while she was
restored to self-possession. She then stated that news of the death of her only
daughter, a resident of the west, had been received by her a few days before.
Remembering that a likeness had been taken a short time previous to her going to
the west, the faint hope had crossed her mind that there might be a duplicate in
the rooms of the Daguerreotypist. She had found it, and gazed once more into the
almost speaking face of her child!
Victorians lived in an age of growing scientific certainty. People began to realize that science could be used as a tool to solve problems that had vexed humanity for millennia. With passive camera operators, long exposure times — it was widely felt that a photographic image was a completely objective record, untainted by human bias. Eadweard Muybridge's famous photographic series of a galloping horse demonstrated that the flat, uninvolved gaze of the camera could capture things the human eye could not see. At this time there was a hotly debated issue, if all four legs of a horse came off the ground during a gallop. Painters of the day always had their horses with at least one foot on the ground. The action of the horse was so fast that people were unable to break down the action with the naked eye. With one series of photographs in 1872 the issue was solved. Horses do indeed have all four hooves off the ground at one time during the gallop. It was these two aspects of the new technology, its supposed scientific inviolability and its ability to freeze images invisible to the human eye that contributed to its use in the sciences as well as among adherents of the new religion of Spiritualism.
Spiritualists saw themselves in a decidedly scientific light. Science had recently found invisible forces in Electricity and magnetism, so it was reasoned science would also soon explain "life forces" that survived the body after death. Photography played a large part in their experiments aiming to prove the existence of ghosts. Not unlike current theories used in the paranormal field to this day. Victorian era people were quick to accept the reality of the spirits in the photographs as a new form of science. Believing as they did that photography was resistant to human manipulation, the invention of photoshop being a few years away.
Early photographers were aware of the faint ghostly images produced when the subject of the photograph moved while the plate was being exposed. It was only a matter of time that someone would use this dishonestly to make a profit. In 1861 a photographer named William Mumler (1832-1884) began producing spirit photographs in his Boston studio. Allegedly using double exposures and various other tricks, Mumler made quite a comfortable living taking pictures of grieving sitters with ethereal friends and relatives hovering nearby. He even took the infamous photograph of Mary Todd Lincoln in which the supposed spirit of her assassinated husband stands behind her with his hands resting on her shoulders. He eventually came under the scrutiny of authorities, and was charged with fraud in 1869. One of his chief accusers was PT Barnum of circus fame. Barnum hired Abraham Bogardus to create a picture that appeared to show Barnum with the ghost of Abraham Lincoln to demonstrate the ease with which the photos could be created. Oddly, not because he supposedly faked the pictures, but because the spirits in
the photo’s were not usually recognizable as the friend or relative of the living sitter and the discovery that some of Mumler's 'ghosts' were in fact
living people, is what was the issue. Although his photos have been discounted as possible frauds, he did let skeptics and photographic experts examine his equipment and procedures, and they were unable to determine how he captured his images. He was acquitted of all charges due to lack of proof, though was ruined by the accusations and died in poverty.
William Hope (1863–1933) is famous spiritual photographer. William was a member of the Crewe Circle, which was a group of spiritualists from Crewe, England. The members appeared to be able to register the faces of spirits on photographic plates simply by holding the plates in their hands. It was further claimed that the plates could be furnished by Hope’s clients themselves.
The Society for the Study of Supernormal Pictures (S.S.S.P. ) was established in 1918 to study promote the scientific study and investigation of supernormal pictures. It was composed largely of professional photographers. Abraham Wallace served as the first president, and was assisted by 3 vice presidents, one of which was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (of Sherlock Holmes fame). Doyle was also an ardent spiritualist and after 1919 a strong advocate of the spirit photographs produced by William Hope of Crewe.
In may 1920 this society issued the following statement:
The members here present desire to place on record the fact that after many
tests and the examination of thousands of pictures, they are unanimously of the
opinion that results have been obtained supernormally on sensitive photographic
plates under reliable test conditions. At present the members do not undertake
to explain how the results have been obtained, but they assert that they have
undoubtedly been secured under conditions excluding the possibility of
fraud.
The Society for Psychical Research (S.P.R.) which was founded in 1882 to conduct organized scholarly research into human experiences that challenge contemporary scientific models. This group was founded be a group of scientists to investigate “that large body of debatable phenomena designated by such terms as mesmeric, psychical and "spiritualistic”, and to do so “in the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned enquiry which has enabled Science to solve so many problems” . The society took an interest in the Crewe Circle. 1922 an investigator named Harry price devised a plan that consisted of presenting Hope with a set of glass negatives that had been secretly marked with X-rays. The trap worked: when Hope returned the plates, the one containing the “extra” spirit image showed no sign of the markings; this meant that Hope had switched a
prepared plate for the secretly marked one. Harry wrote an Expose in the society’s journal and stated “ it can, we think, hardly be denied that Mr
William Hope has been found guilty of deliberately substituting his own plates for those of a sitter…. It implies that the medium brings to the sitting a duplicate slide and faked plates for fraudulent purposes.”
Conan Doyle responded first with a series of tests that (in a letter dated Apr 6th to Houdini the magician):
We seem to have knocked the bottom out of the Hope “exposure.” The plates were marked by X-rays and we find by experiment that X-ray marks disappear on a 20-second exposure, which was the exact time given. Our time is continually wasted over nonsense of this sort, but I suppose it has to be done.
Then with a book called The Case for Spirit Photography after extensive third party testing showed the durability of X-ray markings. Doyle's book sets forth a conspiracy theory for the entrapment of William Hope in that he was framed. Both sides argued their case until Hopes death in 1932, often with bitter results. Harry Price wrote in his autobiography “ Confessions of a Ghost Hunter“ - “Arthur Conan Doyle and his friends . . . abused me for years for exposing Hope.” William hope continued to make spirit photography until his death although many others resigned from the field under the scrutiny of the S.P.R.. In 1926, investigator Harry Price would write, "Our photographic mediums are becoming fewer. One after another, they are being exposed. Supernormal photography is the only phenomenon that will not stand up to the 'strict test' of pure scientific research..." S.S.S.P. ceased operations in 1923. The S.P.R. continues as a society to this very day.
An interesting footnote to the story. Dr. T. Glen Hamilton photographed a session with the medium Mrs. Mary Marshall in which she appears to be extruding Ectoplasm during a session. In the photo Sir Conan Doyle is seen in the upper portion of the "ectoplasm" shown exuding from the medium's nose. The photographer, was a prominent physician and political leader from Winnipeg who conducted research into psychic phenomena between 1918 and 1934.
The Victorian era spiritual foundation combined with a new attachment to the objectivity of the scientific method produced a strange hybrid of science and metaphysics which can still be felt to the present day. One photographer was unable to be disproved by experts, who could not say how he got his pictures. However as he had a rich and famous adversary and pictures like his could be produced in fraudulent ways, he died disgraced and in poverty. Another photographer was found to have used any means of fraud, and because he had the protection of the rich and powerful, he died mostly unaffected. This Era which produced such miracles as the “unsinkable” Titanic . Science advanced so far to state that it is scientifically impossible for a hurricane to hit Galveston Texas, much to the dismay of the people who didn’t evacuate. The Era has a message that is still valid today. Just cause you cannot prove it, does not mean it does not exist. Just cause you can reproduce something like captured
evidence, does not mean it was faked. Every time Science thinks it has all the answers, the universe throws science a curve ball.
