Mysterious Psychic Forces: An Account of the Author's Investigations in Psychical Research, Together with Those of Other European SavantsFlammarion, Camille
Philosophy
Mysterious Psychic Forces: An Account of the Author's Investigations in Psychical Research, Together with Those of Other European Savants
Flammarion, Camille
Parapsychology -- Investigation; Spiritualism
During the week before Katie took her departure she gave seances at my
house almost nightly, to enable me to photograph her by artificial
light. Five complete sets of photographic apparatus were accordingly
fitted up for the purpose, consisting of five cameras, one of the
whole-plate size, one half-plate, one quarter-plate, and two binocular
stereoscopic cameras, which were all brought to bear upon Katie at the
same time on each occasion on which she stood for her portrait. Five
sensitizing and five fixing baths were used, and plenty of plates were
cleaned ready for use in advance, so that there might be no hitch or
delay during the photographic operations, which were performed by
myself, aided by one assistant.
My library was used as a dark cabinet. It has folding doors opening
into the laboratory; one of these doors was taken off its hinges, and
a curtain suspended in its place to enable Katie to pass in and out
easily. Those of our friends who were present were seated in the
laboratory facing the curtain, and the cameras were placed a little
behind them, ready to photograph Katie when she came outside, and to
photograph anything also inside the cabinet, whenever the curtain was
withdrawn for the purpose. Each evening there were three or four
exposures of plates in the five cameras, giving at least fifteen
separate pictures at each seance; some of these were spoilt in the
developing, and some in regulating the amount of light. Altogether, I
have forty-four negatives, some inferior, some indifferent, and some
excellent.
Katie instructed all the sitters but myself to keep their seats and to
keep conditions; but for some time past she has given me permission to
do what I liked--to touch her, and to enter and leave the cabinet
almost whenever I pleased. I have frequently followed her into the
cabinet, and have sometimes seen her and her medium together, but most
generally I have found nobody but the entranced medium lying on the
floor, Katie and her white robes having instantaneously disappeared.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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