Two years later, in May 1895, the spiritualists held a General Conference in London, the proceedings of which extended over several days. At one of the meetings Mr. Traill Taylor read a paper under the title--"Are Spirit Photographs necessarily the Photographs of Spirits?" An abstract of this paper appears in _Light_ (18th May 1895), and it is printed in full in _Borderland_ (July 1895). At the commencement of the paper, Mr. Taylor explained that light is the agent in the production of an ordinary photograph; but he says: "I have ascertained, to my own satisfaction at any rate, that light so called, so far as concerns the experiments I have made, has nothing to do with the production of a psychic picture, and that the lens and camera of the photographer are consequently useless incumbrances." Following this up, Mr. Taylor says: "It was the realisation of this that enabled me at a certain seance recently held, at which many cameras were in requisition, to obtain certain abnormal figures on my plates when all others failed to do so. After withdrawing the slide from the camera, I wrapped it up in the velvet focussing cloth and requested the medium to hold it in his hand, giving him no clue as to my reason for doing so. A general conversation favoured the delay in proceeding to the developing room for about five or more minutes, during which the medium still held the wrapped-up slide. I then relieved him of it, and in the presence of others applied the developer, which brought to view figures in addition to that of the sitter." In making a categorical reply to the question which forms the title of his paper, Mr. Taylor replies--"No"--and gives various "surmises" to account for recognisable likenesses having been obtained. At the end of his paper Mr. Taylor says:-- "The influence of the mind of the medium in the obtaining of psychographs might be deduced from the fact of pictures having been obtained of angels with wings, a still popular belief of some, as ridiculous in its conception as it is false in its anatomy, but still no less true in its photo-pictorial outcome. This does not in the slightest degree impair the genuineness and honesty of the medium, but it inspires me, a disbeliever in the wing notion, with the belief that spirit-photographs are not necessarily photographs of spirits. "A concluding word: A medium may, on passing through a picture gallery, become impressed by some picture which, although forgotten soon after, may yet make a persistent appearance on his negative on subsequent occasions. My caution is that if such be published as a spirit photograph, care must be taken that no copyright of such picture is infringed. I have cases of this nature in my mind's eye, but time does not permit of this being enlarged upon, else I could have recited several instances."