The Veil Lifted: Modern Developments of Spirit Photography
Religion
The Veil Lifted: Modern Developments of Spirit Photography
Spirit photography; Spiritualism
possessed of shrewdness, tact, an eye like a hawk’s, watchful and
ready to detect the slightest attempt at trickery or fraud, with an
integrity of purpose and an independent outspokenness which would lead
him fearlessly to expose and denounce those who would so far forget
themselves as to trifle with the most sacred feelings of our nature,
by attempting to palm off as abnormal and strange that which is but a
miserable counterfeit of a grand reality. Gentlemen, do you uphold me in
my view that Mr. Taylor was the right man for the experiments to which
reference has been made? (Applause and expressions of approval.) I thank
you for this expression of your opinion. I do not wish to corner you;
I do not wish to trap you into a seeming acquiescence with views which
you have not considered. My desire is to be perfectly frank; but there
are reasons, into which I need not enter now, why I have put before
you the statements and the question to which you have responded. Well,
supposing for the moment that Mr. Taylor’s report of his experiments is
an accurate statement, that portraits have appeared on his plates, and
have been printed from his plates, which cannot be accounted for by any
known agency, it seems to me to be a fair conclusion to arrive at, that
there were other persons present at those experiments besides the ladies
and gentlemen who could be seen with the normal vision; that these
unseen visitors were exhibiting an active and intelligent interest in the
matter, and that they were aiding by their co-operation to produce the
abnormal images which appeared on the plates. Call these unseen visitors
by the name which may commend itself to you as most fairly descriptive;
call them spooks, or ghosts, or astrals, or elementals, or even, if you
prefer to do so, call them devils. I call them spirit friends—ex-carnated
human beings—that is what they profess to be, and that is what, in an
experience of such matters extending over a good many years, I have
always had good reason to believe them to be. Therefore I transfer
the name from the principal operators to the pictures themselves, and
I call the latter spirit photographs. Likewise, because the abnormal
portraits, so far as they have been recognised, are portraits of persons
who have cast off the earthly tabernacle, I claim that the name spirit
photographs, or photographs of spirits, is as near as we can get to
accuracy in the present state of our knowledge.”
Mr. F. A. BRIDGE said they were bound to believe Mr. Taylor’s statement;
but, as practical photographers, though the pictures shown _might_ be
spirit photographs, he thought they gave them the idea of cut-out prints,
but as to who cut them out he did not know and did not care. He, however,
did not for one moment wish to impute any complicity or dishonesty to
Mr. Glendinning in connexion with the experiments, for that gentleman
appeared (as he had said) merely to have been desirous of arriving at the
truth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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