The Case for Spirit Photography

Having said so much in support of Mr. Hope's mediumship, let me say what / I can in the way of personal criticism, for I hold no particular brief / for him, and am only anxious to follow truth wherever it may lead. I have / written this pamphlet because I think that truth has been grievously / obscured, and that the fruit of seventeen years of remarkable psychic / demonstration is, for the moment, imperilled by the attention of the / public being directed entirely to a single case which is, admittedly upon / the face of it, of a damaging character. We spiritualists should be, in / Stevenson's fine phrase, "steel-true and blade-straight," and we should / never avoid an issue, or fall into the error of our opponents who have / no sense of balance and can only focus their gaze upon one side of a / question.

It has been said that Hope is suspiciously restless and fussy in the / dark room. This, so far as my own observation goes, is correct. It may / be that he is nervously anxious for success, or it may be that he is not / in a normal condition-for he usually holds a service and occasionally / goes into apparent trance immediately before the experiment. Whatever / the cause, I am not prepared to deny the fact, or that not unreasonable / suspicions might be awakened by his attitude in the minds of those who / are brought for the first time in contact with his personality. I can / only point to the cases already given, and say once more that _no_ action / upon his part could have produced them.