Research source

But this card, impressive as it looks, will not really take the trick

Date of account: Published 1923
Source: The Case Against Spirit Photographs
Reference: The Case Against Spirit Photographs · selected passage 75
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

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 only

But this card, impressive as it looks, will not really take the trick. If it could be shown (i.) that a given “extra” was _unmistakably_ recognisable as a portrait of a deceased--or even of a living--person, and (ii.) that the medium concerned could not possibly have obtained a likeness of that person to work from, then we should be obliged to attach great weight to this factor, even if the conditions were not otherwise such as to exclude fraud. For such a result could not be fraudulently produced. But in spite of the perfectly honest assertions of many investigators, it seems very doubtful whether this state of affairs has ever been realised.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This source supplies historical scientific, skeptical or conventional context. Its terminology and conclusions may not reflect current scholarship.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

Lattice 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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