Three years later spirit photographs were being taken in this country
- Date of account
- Published 1923
- Source
- The Case Against Spirit Photographs
- Reference
- The Case Against Spirit Photographs · selected passage 13
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
Three years later spirit photographs were being taken in this country
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyThree years later spirit photographs were being taken in this country. Hudson, the principal exponent, was introduced by Mrs. Guppy, a well-known medium of the time. His performance was on the same lines as Mumler’s, and his results similar, the faces of the extras being always partly obscured and the figures draped. Nevertheless, many of them were recognised. The usual unsatisfactory tests were applied by the more sceptical sitters; in particular we have the report of an optician named Slater, who took his own camera and lenses to Hudson, obtaining “a fine spirit photo” and observing “no suspicious circumstances.” However, a less easily duped critic soon appeared, in the person of one Beattie, a professional photographer of Clifton, and a man of high repute. He showed that in many of Hudson’s photographs not only did the background appear through the extra--as might perhaps be expected with an ethereal spirit--but that the background was clearly visible through the very material bodies of the human sitters!
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis source supplies historical scientific, skeptical or conventional context. Its terminology and conclusions may not reflect current scholarship.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice uses this as an alternative-explanation source, not as an automatic dismissal of testimony. Claims still need to be compared with the actual evidence and current knowledge.
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