F. M. Parkes (England)

“Mrs. Collins & Her Husband’s Father, Recognized by Several.”

Phillips Bros. (A. H. Phillips and A. T. Phillips), Pontiac, Michigan

Man Reading with Female Spirit Behind circa 1870

A mysterious image, quite unlike other spirit photographs in the same format. How was it done? The spirit appears to be part of the backdrop, and that may be an important clue. In the book Photographic Amusements (first published in 1896) Walter E. Woodbury offered several different techniques for making spirit photographs. One involved painting a picture of a ghostly figure with “fluorescent substances, such as bisulphate of quinine… This compound, although almost invisible to the eye, photographs nearly black. If a white piece of paper be painted with the substance, except on certain parts, the latter only will appear white in the picture.”

Robert Boursnell (England)

Self-Portrait with Spirits

March 9, 1902

This photograph is identified as a self-portrait based on a comparison with a profile portrait of Boursnell published in Fred Gettings’ book, Ghosts in Photographs.

Boursnell was investigated by the Spirit Photography Commission set up by the Daily Mail in 1908. The Commission was comprised of spiritualists and technical experts from the photography industry. A member of the group, Mr. A. P. Sinnett, recounted how he was photographed by Boursnell: Sinnett purchased a package of negatives from a shop chosen at random, then opened them and loaded one of the plates into the plate holder and camera by himself. After the exposure, he watched as the negative was developed in the darkroom. Sinnett says he also examined the camera and found it “certainly free from tricks—I do not see how I could have been cheated under these conditions.”

Sinnett was already well-known in occult circles, having conducted years of correspondence with “adepts” in the spirit world. This correspondence, known as “The Mahatma Letters,” took place through the mediumship of Madame Blavatsky, founder of Theosophy.

Despite Sinnett’s testimony, the Spirit Photography Commission could not reach agreement on the validity of Boursnell’s work.

Edouard Isidore Buguet (France, b. 1840)

Mons. Leymarie and Mons. C. with Spirit of Edouard Poiret

Leymarie was the editor of Revue Spirite, which circulated this image and publicized Buguet’s work. In 1875, a French court sentenced Buguet and Leymarie to a year in prison for fraud after a raid on the Buguet studio uncovered two shrouded dummies (the smaller of the figures was used to represent children) and 299 photographs of heads, mounted on cardboard. Confronted with the evidence, Buguet confessed. But at the Spiritualist Congress in Brussels during September of 1875, he recanted— claiming that the dummies were only used by his employees when he was absent due to illness, and insisting that two-thirds of his ghost photographs were genuine. (For an account of the trial and its impact, please click here)

The English medium and Anglican minister William Stainton Moses considered this one of the most important spirit photographs ever made.

Robert Boursnell (England, 1832-1909)

Couple with the Spirit of an Old Family Doctor who Died Around 1880

January 3, 1893

Boursnell claimed to have made spirit photographs as early as 1853, when “extras” appeared on portraits he was taking. The photographer, it was said, did not recognize the supernormal nature of these interlopers and blamed their appearance on improper cleaning of the glass used in the negative. One day, in a fit of anger, he dashed the negative to the floor, damning both the glass and the people who appeared on it. The “extras” did not return until 1886, when Boursnell became acquainted with spiritualism.

Because spirit photographers and mediums were subject to prosecution in Great Britain, Boursnell handed a printed slip to his patrons which denied the “extras” were spirits—instead, it proclaimed, they were “shadows in the background.” Critics charged that the same spirits appeared unchanged in different photographs, a sign of fakery. That revelation seems to have made no difference to Boursnell’s supporters.

A hundred of Boursnell’s spirit photographs were exhibited at the Psychological Society in London, and in 1903 the spiritualists of that city presented the photographer with a signed testimonial and a purse of gold.

The mount of this photograph is inscribed, “Taken by R. Boursnell in London Jan. 3, 1893. The spirit is an old family doctor who died around 1880.”

J. R. Mercer with Spirits of his First Wife and Mother, a Spirit Message and Flowers from the Other Side

Silver-gelatine cabinet card, 3.75 x 4.75 inches

circa 1897

Edward Wyllie was a farmer, a cartoonist, an auctioneer and a soldier in New Zealand before emigrating to the United States in 1886 and becoming a photographer in Los Angeles.

This photograph combines many of the most important themes of spiritualism: a message from beyond, an offering of flowers, and the physical appearance of deceased family members on the same plate as the likeness of a living person. The written message reads “am so glad thee have gotten the light at last and that thou are so happy. Elizabeth B. Mercer.”

The sitter is 88-year old John R. Mercer of Pasadena, California. The image in the lower right is said to be that of Mercer’s mother. The other “extra” represents Mercer’s first wife, Rachel (d. 1851), and the flowers are said to be identical to those held by Mercer’s second wife, Elizabeth, before her burial on Thanksgiving Day, 1897.

According to Fred Gettings, author of Ghosts in Photographs,

The important point about this picture is that, even though the lower face does suggest that it was based on a process image, probably a screened print, the likeness itself, which Mercer attested to, could not have been derived in such a way, as she had been buried for sixty-nine years, and no daguerreotype, painting, or screened block could have been made of her during her lifetime!

Presuming the Wyllie photograph was made in 1897, John R. Mercer’s mother would have died a dozen years before the first photographic portraits were made. Even so, her image looks distinctly like a copy of a daguerreotype. To the believers, this was evidence that Wyllie’s photograph had to be a supernormal work. To skeptics, it suggests the frailty of human memory— for without the aid of a photograph or painting, it is possible to make a mistake identifying someone whose face has not been seen for 69 years.

69 years.

William Eglinton (England, b. 1857)

Mary Burchett with Spirit of her School-Master

Inscribed on verso:

“Taken in my room with my own camera and plates by Mr. Eglinton and developed directly afterward in my presence Dec. 9th 1886. Mary Burchett” with the added inscription below in pencil, “I believe this to be a likeness of my old school master Mr. Wyand.”

Eglinton was Britain’s most prominent medium when the 20th century arrived. He turned to spiritualism around 1874 and by 1876 reportedly levitated himself during a seance. In addition to levitations, Eglinton produced mysterious spirit messages in chalk on slates and—it is claimed— while entranced even managed to transport himself through the ceiling of a house and into the room above. He counted Prime Minister Gladstone among his believers, and held seances for the Czar of Russia.

Eglinton is seldom mentioned in conjunction with spirit photography; the actual photographer may have been someone else. Perhaps the initial or monogram on the lower right of the card recto is a clue.

The strange black dot on the man’s head in this photograph may look like a bullet hole, but in fact is a spot on the paper. It contributes to the eerie effect of this image, created at least in part by the disturbed appearance of the ghost.

That the sitter provided plates and camera, and that she was present for the development of the negative suggest that this was an early test of the veracity of spirit photography. Such tests became more rigorous by the 1920s, when the illusionist Harry Houdini investigated spirit mediums in the U.S. and Europe.