“Should this lecture induce any present to seek communion with their departed friends, let me beg of them to seek only for spiritual aid in an earnest and prayerful manner, in their own homes, amongst friends who desire to know the truth and will investigate with unbiassed minds. To such success must come, sooner or later; but those who try to use God’s spiritual gifts for worldly and selfish ends will bring disaster on themselves and discredit on the cause.” * * * * * At a séance held twenty-nine years ago, the following question was put as to spirit photographs: “We do not comprehend how these are produced. Can you give us any information as to the process gone through?” The answer given through the medium, Mr. Peter A. Chesser, marine engineer, may be of interest to some. It was this: “Spirits impress their image on the plate by depositing thereon repeated layers of magnetism. According to their respective powers of affording this, so is the impression more or less distinct. The magnetism must be of the same texture or affinity as that possessed by the operator; it is accomplished by a rapid vibration of the spirits’ magnetic emanation in depositing layer after layer, and the process is this: The operator by frequent manipulation saturates his materials with his aura—I do not mean the animal aura of mesmerism, but his spiritual aura; this, by repeated impression on his part from repeated manipulations (which require considerable time, since he is still in the body and has, therefore, more difficulty in, as it were, filtering this spirit-aura through the pores of his body than have the spirits, who are not trammelled in like manner), at last leaves a positive viscidity on his materials which serves to retain the first impressions thrown by the spirits upon it. When they from affinity cohere, the image is rapidly built up on this superstructure. Any person through the pores of whose body-material this spirit-aura can readily pass is in a condition to take photographs of the kind to which you refer. Much passiveness, however, is requisite.” This reply refers, of course, to the photographs in class No. I., mentioned in the Preface, not to pictures which are produced by spirit precipitation.