SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY: “When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
Let me explain, then, that Mr. William Hope, who is a working-man, discovered, some seventeen years ago, quite by chance, that this remarkable power of producing extra faces, figures or objects upon photographic plates had been given to him. In the first instance he was taking a fellow-workman, and the plate, when developed, was found to contain an extra figure which was recognised as being a likeness of his comrade’s sister, who had recently passed away. This form of mediumship is rare, but from the days of Mumler, who first showed it in 1861, there has never been a time when one or more sensitives have not been able to demonstrate it.
(Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case for Spirit Photography)
Along with telegraphs and typewriters, spiritualism and psychical research also developed alongside another ground-breaking technology: photography. The photograph fundamentally changed how people viewed the world and the passage of time, moments could be literally frozen forever. The camera was already something of a mystical object before it ever interacted with spiritualism.
But somehow or another, someone was going to realize they could combine the phenomena to make money. That man was spiritualist William Mulmer (1832-1884) from Boston. In 1861, he shocked the world by producing the first ever image of a spirit, undeniable proof of life after death. He claimed he had discovered anomaly while experimenting with chemicals during the development process. The figure of a young woman appeared in the background who resembled his deceased cousin. Amazed, Butler set up studios in Boston and New York and photographed many notable figures, including Mary Todd Lincoln with a spectral Abe Lincoln standing behind her.
To the modern viewer, it is obvious Mulmer’s spirit photographs are just simple double exposure. However, in the 1860s, when most people had never had their picture taken let alone understood how photography works, they were easy to convince.
Another early spirit photographer, French physician Hippolyte Baraduc, took a more abstract approach in his method. Influences by mesmerism, Baraduc believed he could capture magnetic fluid surrounding a person on camera. He named these photographs “psychicones” and claimed they were created by “psycho-odic-fluidic-currents” which changed shape depending on a person’s mood and physical condition. The camera could also capture currents from the dead as well as the living.
What Mulmer and Baraduc’s methods had in common was their belief that the camera, like a crystal ball, could see what was invisible to the human eye. They and other proponents of spiritualist photography believed there was an inherent quality to the photographic process that allowed it to uncover hidden energies. Now spiritualists could not only communicate with the spirit world but view it as well.