The Humbugs of the World: An Account of Humbugs, Delusions, Impositions, Quackeries, Deceits and Deceivers Generally, in All AgesBarnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor)
General
The Humbugs of the World: An Account of Humbugs, Delusions, Impositions, Quackeries, Deceits and Deceivers Generally, in All Ages
Barnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor)
Impostors and imposture
Some time before the Presidential election, a photographer residing in
one of our cities (an ingenious man and a scientific chemist,) was
engaged in making experiments with his camera, hoping to discover some
new combination whereby to increase the facility of "picturing the human
form divine," etc. One morning, his apparatus being in excellent order,
he determined to photograph himself. No sooner thought of, than he set
about making his arrangements. All being ready, he placed himself in a
position, remained a second or two, and then instantly closing his
camera, surveyed the result of his operation. On bringing the picture
out upon the plate, he was surprised to find a shadowy representation of
a human being, so remarkably ghostlike and supernatural, that he became
amused at the discovery he had made. The operation was repeated, until
he could produce similar pictures by a suitable arrangement of his
lenses and reflectors known to no other than himself. About this time he
became acquainted with one of the most famous spiritualist-writers, and
in conversation with him, showed him confidentially one of those
photographs, with also the shadow of another person, with the remark,
mysteriously whispered:
"I assure you, Sir, upon my word as a gentleman, and by all my hopes of
a hereafter, that this picture was produced upon the plate as you see
it, at a time when I had locked myself in my gallery, and no other
person was in the room. It appeared instantly, as you see it there; and
I have long wished to obtain the opinion of some man, like yourself, who
has investigated these mysteries."
The spiritualist listened attentively, looked upon the picture, heard
other explanations, examined other pictures, and sagely gave it as his
opinion that the inhabitants of the unknown sphere had taken this mode
of re-appearing to the view of mortal eyes, that this operator must be a
"medium" of especial power. The New York Herald of Progress, a
spiritualist paper, printed the first article upon this man's spiritual
photograph.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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