The Veil Lifted: Modern Developments of Spirit Photography — John Shaqi
The Veil Lifted: Modern Developments of Spirit Photography
Religion
The Veil Lifted: Modern Developments of Spirit Photography
Spirit photography; Spiritualism
Some very striking phenomena in photographing the invisible may be
produced by the agency of fluorescence. Figures depicted upon a
background by one or other of certain substances I shall presently name,
although invisible to the eye, may become visible to the camera. Of
these, the best known, although not the most effective, is disulphate
of quinine. Such a solution, although to the eye it is colourless like
water, is to the camera as black as ink. Fill three phials respectively
with water, quinine, and common writing ink, and you have two whites and
one black; but photograph them, and you have two blacks and one white.
The camera has reduced the transparent quinine solution to the colour
of the ink. Those of you who may care to experiment in this direction,
please take notice that the quinine must be acidulated with sulphuric
acid, and that hydrochloric acid, even a small trace, will destroy this
property. Among other substances that are fluorescent, or that change
the refrangibility of rays of light, are mineral uranite, certain salts
of uranium, canary glass, alcoholic solution of chlorophyll, æsculine,
tincture of stramonium seeds, and of turmeric. There are others known
to be still better, but my experiments in this direction are yet too
incomplete to warrant my even indicating them.
Let me for a moment enter the realm of speculation, and assume that there
are really spirits invisible to the eye but visible to the camera and to
certain persons called seers or clairvoyants only. Might we not suggest
that there is some fluorescent compound in the eyes of such persons not
present in those whose eyes are normal, and that it is to this they owe
their seeing powers? Some of you may probably be aware that Dr. Bence
Jones and other philosophers have actually established the fact of such
fluorescent substances being found in some eyes. May this throw any light
upon the recognised fact of certain animals being able to see in the dark?
When the subject of fluorescence is more thoroughly investigated (it is a
discovery of Sir D. Brewster, who was followed by Herschel and Professor
Stokes, and is as yet but of yesterday), we may hope for a vast accession
to our knowledge of subjects as yet very slightly understood.
At the Bradford meeting of the British Association for the Advancement
of Science, in 1873, Dr. Gladstone, F.R.S., demonstrated before the
Mathematical and Physical Section what I have said respecting invisible
drawings on white cards having produced bold and clear photographs when
no eye could see the drawings themselves, and I brought away back to
London these photographs, and, for aught I know, may have them still.
To prevent this disquisition from being too dry, I will here introduce a
fanciful sketch I wrote _àpropos_ of Dr. Gladstone’s demonstration at the
time mentioned:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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