CHAPTER III
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:

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 red light, he explains, was a good one and he could see all that occurred.

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.)

Fig. 6.—Major R. E. E. Spencer and psychic face obtained in special test. (See p. 31.)

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.

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.