The Case for Spirit Photography

I took up my pen for the purpose of considering the case of the Crewe / Circle and urging the folly of discarding the work of seventeen years / on the score of a single case. I cannot, however, end my task without / saying a few words as to the attack upon Mrs. Deane and Mr. Vearncombe, / two other photographic mediums. This attack hardly deserves attention as / it was anonymous, but it was brought out under the auspices of the Magic / Circle, a society of conjurers who have been interesting themselves in / matters psychic. As the two attacks were issued almost simultaneously / they seem to have had some common inspiration, and to have formed a / general assault upon the whole position of psychic photography. The same / individual, Mr. Seymour, the amateur conjurer, actually took part, I / understand, in both transactions.

Mrs. Deane, the person attacked, is a somewhat pathetic and forlorn / figure among all these clever tricksters. She is a little, elderly / charwoman, a humble white mouse of a person, with her sad face, her / frayed gloves, and her little handbag which excites the worst suspicions / in the minds of her critics. Her powers were discovered in the first / instance quite by chance. When she first pursued the subject her / circumstances were such that her only dark room was under the kitchen / table with clothes pinned round it. None the less, she produced some / remarkable pictures under these conditions, one of which fell into my / hands, and I at once concluded that she had real powers. The portrait / was of a young man in life, with a female spirit face behind him. This / might well have been faked. Something seemed to be emerging from the / young man's head, however, and on observing this object with a lens I / distinguished that it was a small but correct representation of the / Assyrian fish-god, Dagon, wearing the peculiar hat with which that deity / is always associated. This was so entirely the kind of freakish result / which I expect from spirit photography, and was so removed from the / normal powers of a charwoman, that I provisionally accepted her in my / mind as a true medium, a position from which I have never been compelled / to budge. I still retain this photograph, but the little head is too / small for satisfactory reproduction.