EVIDENTIAL TESTS AND THEIR RESULTS
We will now turn to the reproduction of faces, and I will give an
instance where all the stock theories about changing or superposition
of plates become untenable. At the annual meeting of the Society for
the Study of Supernormal Pictures, I being present, a photograph of the
members was taken in the normal way as a souvenir. As Hope was present,
it was suggested that a second photograph be taken by him in the hope
that we might get some psychic effect. The plate was taken from an
unopened packet in the pocket of the secretary, and some fifteen of us
were witnesses of the whole transaction. Hope had no warning at all,
and could have made no preparation. The plate was at once developed
by one of our own members, and a well-marked extra, amid a cloud of
ectoplasm, appeared upon the picture. This extra was claimed by one of
our members as a good likeness of his dead father. This result, which is
illustrated by Figure 5, was obtained before an audience of experts, if
any men in this world have a right to call themselves experts upon this
subject. How can it be explained by fraud and how can such a case be
lightly set aside? Granting for argument’s sake that the sitter may have
been mistaken in the recognition, how can the actual psychic effect be
accounted for?
It happens, occasionally, that these ghost-faces which appear upon the
plates retain some remarkable physical peculiarity which prove beyond all
question who they represent. One such case has been handed to me by the
Countess of Malmesbury, whose own account is so clear and condensed that
it could not be bettered:
“I sat with Mr. Hope and Mrs. Buxton on Friday, December
9th, 1921, and was accompanied by ‘Val L’Estrange,’ a lady
professional photographer, who watched the proceedings on my
behalf, as I do not understand photography. She states that
from first to last she could not detect any fraud. As I sat
for the photograph the wish just crossed my mind that I might
obtain a photograph of J. H., who died in 1880, and that I
could receive a definite sign that it was genuine.
“J. H. died as the result of an operation for the removal of
the lower jaw, which had been seriously injured. No one saw him
after this terrible misfortune except five persons, of whom I
am the only survivor, and I need not say that no photograph was
then taken of him.
“I showed the photograph to Dr. Fielding Ould, who at once
recognised it as that of a man who had had his lower jaw
removed. This opinion was confirmed by several of his medical
friends, to whom he showed the picture.
“I should add that the plates were bought by ‘Val L’Estrange’
direct from the manufacturer, and that we brought them with
us. The exposure was forty seconds. The plate which produced
the portrait was manipulated by Mr. Hope under the supervision
of ‘Val L’Estrange.’ We both superintended the development and
fixing of the negative.
“As an impartial investigator of psychic matters I have stated
exactly what took place, without comment.
(_signed_) “SUSAN, COUNTESS OF MALMESBURY.”
It must be admitted that this case, so exactly recorded, would be a
difficult one to explain away.
I would now quote the case furnished by Major Spencer, who is an
experienced and careful observer, and has given much attention to psychic
photography. In this experiment he used his own camera, his own carriers
and his own plates. What could be more drastic than that! He says, if I
may abbreviate his account:
“The box of plates was never out of my sight and was cut open
in the dark room by myself; Hope or Mrs. Buxton in no instance
touching them.”
The red light, he explains, was a good one and he could see all that
occurred.
“Hope stood on my left hand for the whole time in the dark
room and I kept the box of plates under my right elbow during
the operations of initialling and inserting the plates in the
slides.... My own camera remained closed in my despatch-case
(also closed) till I returned from the dark room, when I set it
up on its tripod, extending it, and focussing it upon the chair
afterwards used. When the exposures were made by Hope I had to
explain to him how to actuate the shutter, as the lever on the
camera front was new to him. The only contact with the camera
was when he touched this lever. Exposure thirty-five seconds.
Neither Mrs. Buxton nor Hope knew that I had intended using my
own camera and dark slides till we met in the studio. These
slides are metallic and each contains one plate.”
[Illustration: FIG. 5.—Group of Members of the S.S.S.P. The psychic face
will be seen in the centre of the plate and situated horizontally to the
sitters. (_See_ p. 28.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 6.—Major R. E. E. Spencer and psychic face obtained
in special test. (_See_ p. 31.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 7.—Sir William Crookes with psychic face obtained in
his own laboratory through the mediumship of the Crewe Circle. (_See_ p.
33.)]
(For the benefit of the uninitiated, let me explain that the carrier and
the dark slide are different names for the same thing, the receptacle
into which the plates are put in the dark room, which is then inserted
into the back of the camera.)
Now this is a case which any reasonable man would say eliminated every
possible source of error. The actual result was that out of six plates,
two showed unrecognised extra faces. One of the results is reproduced
in Figure 6. How came those faces upon the plates? How can our critics
explain it? They cannot explain it, and yet they have not the honesty
to admit their inability. Among our chief enemies is that inner circle
which for the moment controls the destinies of the Society for Psychical
Research. What flaw do they find? I am sure the honest common-sense
reader would never guess. The flaw adduced is that Major Spencer left his
camera inside his despatch-box in the studio while he was in the dark
room. Mrs. Buxton was in the studio. She might have dashed at the box,
pulled it open, dragged out the camera, and then ... well, what then? No
one can imagine what the next stage would be. Dr. Abraham Wallace has
publicly asked the critic to state what could then be done which would
have put two human faces upon different plates and none on the others.
If Major Spencer had locked his box it would then have been claimed that
Mrs. Buxton had a skeleton key in her pocket. It is puerile criticism
of this sort which has lowered that intellectual respect which we older
members had once for the S.P.R. It is intellectually dishonest and
the sign of a frame of mind which is not there to follow facts or to
ascertain the truth, but only to argue a preconceived case as a lawyer
speaks from his brief. The S.P.R. (or their present spokesmen) are
against psychic photography, and therefore it is better to put up the
most childish and preposterous objections rather than to say that a case
is clearly proved. I would appeal to any impartial mind whether this case
of Major Spencer’s does not absolutely cover every objection.
I would now give the case of the dream-hand of Lady Grey of Falloden.
When I was going to Australia this lady most kindly wrote out the facts
for me and gave me a copy of the photograph, which I used upon my screen.
Lady Glenconner, as she then was, dreamed that if she was photographed
at Crewe she would see her son’s hand resting upon her left shoulder.
She said nothing to Hope, but she put the fact of her dream upon record.
Sure enough, in the photograph there is a small cloud of ectoplasm,
and emerging from it a hand, which is resting even as it rested in the
dream. Where does fraud come in, in such a case as that? Surely those
who circulated a libellous pamphlet against Hope upon the strength of a
single case must feel ashamed when they consider such a result as that,
where no possible manipulation could have affected the picture. Psychic
caution is an admirable quality, but extreme incredulity is even more
disastrous than extreme credulity. The psychic investigator should be a
filter, not a block.
I would now quote the case of Mr. Pearse, a well-known business man of
Manchester. This is no psychic fanatic, but a hard-headed Northern man of
business. He visited Hope at Crewe, taking with him his own new camera
and his own carrier, which was loaded by his daughter. No chance of
transposition here, unless Hope had a duplicate carrier.
“The result,” he says, “was an undisputed likeness to
my father. _No photograph of him in that position is in
existence._ Everyone who has known him has recognised him, and
my mother treasures the photograph very much.”
In this account the sting lies in the statement that no such photograph
is in existence. Again and again—it would not be too much to say that
fifty instances could be produced—this statement can be made. Is it not
incredible that people should be found who cannot see that such a fact is
evidential of supernormal action?
I have alluded to the fact that Sir William Crookes received such a
photograph at Crewe, and that it bore a close resemblance to his deceased
wife. I have not been able to get any copy of this photograph, but it
is devoutly to be hoped that it, and Sir William’s invaluable psychic
papers, are being duly cared for by his executors and biographer, for
they have there a precious trust, and any tampering with it on account
of their individual opinions would entail upon them the censure of
generations yet unborn. In an interview in the _Christian Commonwealth_
(December 4th, 1918) the interviewer, Miss Scatcherd, asked, “And may I
say how you went north with another friend and myself and procured on
your own marked plate, under your own conditions, a likeness of your
beloved wife, the late Lady Crookes?” To which Sir William answered:
“You may say that, since it is the truth.... You may add that the picture
obtained after her passing on is unlike any of the many which I possess,
but certainly resembles my dear one in her last days of failing health.”
In a private letter, which I have seen, Sir William, writing on December
14, 1916, shortly after the incident, says: “The photograph is easily
recognised by all to whom I have shown it. I find that it is very similar
in likeness to one I took about ten years ago, although by no means a
facsimile reproduction. This makes it all the more satisfactory to me.”
Though I am unable to reproduce this photograph, I have been able, by
the kindness of Miss Scatcherd, to reproduce (Figure 7) the preliminary
experimental photograph got in Sir William’s laboratory, which induced
him to take the Crewe Circle seriously. Only Mr. Hope and Miss Scatcherd
were present on this occasion. It was taken, says the latter, “under the
strictest conditions that the genius of Sir William Crookes, backed by
his unusual common sense, could suggest.” The face here is not that of
Lady Crookes, and was not recognised. But surely such a result must show
the public how superficial is the view which on the strength of a single
experiment endeavours to discredit the whole life’s work of Mr. Hope.
Several examples of Crewe photographs are reproduced (Figures 8, 9, 10)
which show the similarity to the living man, and yet are declared by
the relatives to be unlike any existing picture. That which is shown on
Figure 8 is the result obtained by that brave psychic pioneer, the Rev.
Charles Tweedale, who from his little Yorkshire vicarage beckons the
Church on the road that it should go. In this case Mr. Tweedale called
upon Hope without any appointment and obtained, as has several times
been obtained on surprise visits, an excellent result. The psychic face
is that of his wife’s father, whose features in life, for purposes of
comparison, are shown by Figure 9. The picture is unlike any in existence.
I have said that the psychic faces are sometimes more animated and
life-like than the original photographs taken in life. In support of this
assertion I would point to Figure 10. The old man who smiles so happily
is Mrs. Buxton’s own father, then very recently dead. I do not think that
the most cynical of my readers will contend that a daughter is likely to
make a blasphemous faked picture of her own father, even if it had been
possible to produce so vital an effect.
Anyone who is familiar with Hope’s results is aware that over many of the
psychic faces there appears a roll or arch of some peculiar substance
which has never been explained upon any supposition of fraud, but is so
constant that it would appear to be part of the psychic process. Some of
us have always contended that probably this arch represents a formation
corresponding to the Cabinet upon this side—an envelope or enclosed space
within which psychic forces are generated and condensed. The arch is by
no means peculiar to Hope, though the exact form and texture of it is
such that one could pick out a Hope photograph among a hundred others.
This psychic arch, as it has been named, appears in many forms and many
places, some of them very unexpected. I have, as an example, a photograph
before me as I write which was taken by Mr. Boyd, the respected provost
of a Scotch borough, upon a recent journey which he made upon the West
Coast of Africa. On taking a small group of natives he found an extra
of a woman and child (negroes) upon his plate. This extra figure is
surrounded and surmounted by the psychic arch in an exaggerated form.
Mr. Boyd has no axe to grind, and, so far as I know, he is not even a
spiritualist. How comes it, then, that his result fits so definitely
into the arch system, if it be not that there is some general law which
regulates results whether they be obtained in Crewe or on the Gold Coast?
Again, I have a friend, an amateur, who has himself developed psychic
photography from the time that it was a mere luminous blur upon his
plates, until now he receives very graceful and perfect pictures which
are in some cases recognised faces of the dead. In his case the arch
adjusts itself into the form of an artistic hood or mantilla. But the
arch principle carries on. It is only by a comprehensive view of this
sort, and by the comparison of different independent results, that we
are likely to get at some of the laws which underlie this matter. At
present the system adopted in quarters which should be responsible ones
is to concentrate attention upon whatever may seem to be failure or
deception, and to take no notice at all of the broader aspects of the
question. In every science the methods of advance are to pay strict
attention to the positive results and to regard the negative ones as mere
warnings of what to avoid. This process has been reversed in considering
psychic photography, and the world has been deceived by those who should
have been its guides. Truth will, of course, prevail, but its progress
has been grievously retarded by this unhappy and unscientific mental
attitude.
On one occasion remarkable evidence was afforded that we were right
in our surmise that a cabinet of ectoplasm for concentration is first
constructed, and that the psychic effect is developed inside it. The
result, which is depicted in Figure 12, was got by Mr. Jeffrey, of
Glasgow, who was, I may add, the President of the Scottish Society of
Magicians, and is therefore the last person to be deceived by any sort of
trick. In this case the exposure seems to have been too early so that the
ectoplasmic bag is exposed in its complete form, without any contents. In
the second picture, Figure 13, taken immediately afterwards, the face of
Mr. Jeffrey’s deceased wife has appeared, and the bag has split to show
it, forming the familiar fold over both sides of the face. This picture
seems to me to be quite final in showing us exactly how the matter is
worked by the forces which direct things upon the other side.
Each of these cases which I have given is impressive, I hope, in
itself, but their cumulative effect should be overpowering. They are
but selections out of a very long list which I could provide, but
repetition would be unprofitable, for if those which are here quoted fail
to convince the reader then he is surely beyond conviction. One or two
might conceivably be the result of imperfect observation or incorrect
statement, but it is an insult to common sense to say that so long an
array of honourable witnesses, with their precise detail, with their
actual photographic results, and with the complete exclusion of any
possible trickery, should all be explained in any normal fashion.