M Ed Buguet, Ed Buguet,
Medium M Ed Buguet France
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M Ed Buguet Medium
M. Ed. Buguet, the French Spirit Photographer, visited London in June, 1874, and
at his studio at 33 Baker Street had many well-known sitters. Mr. Harrison,
editor of The Spiritualist, speaks of a test employed by this photographer,
namely, cutting off a corner of the glass plate and fitting it to the negative
after development. Mr. Stainton Moses describes Buguet as a tall, thin man, with
earnest face and clearly-cut features, with an abundance of bushy black hair.
During the exposure of a plate he was said to be in partial trance. The psychic
results he obtained were of far higher artistic quality and distinctness than
those obtained by other Mediums. Also a big percentage of the spirit forms were
recognized. A curious feature with Buguet was that he obtained a number of
portraits of the "double" of sitters, as well as of those living, but not
present, with him in the studio. Thus
Stainton Moses, while lying in a state of
trance in London, had his picture appear on a plate in Paris when Mr. Gledstanes
was the sitter.*
* HUMAN NATURE, Vol. IX, p. 97.
In April, 1875, Buguet was arrested and charged by the French Government with
producing fraudulent Spirit photographs. To save himself he confessed that all
his results had been obtained by trickery. He was sentenced to a fine of five
hundred francs and imprisonment for one year. At the trial a number of
well-known public men maintained their belief in the genuineness of the "extras"
they had obtained, in spite of the production of dummy "ghosts" said to have
been used by Buguet. The truth of Spirit Photography does not rest with this Medium, but those who are interested enough to read the full account of his
arrest and trial* should be able to form their own conclusions. Writing after
the trial, Mr. Stainton Moses says: "I not only believe-I KNOW, as surely as I
know anything, that some of Budget's pictures were genuine."
* THE SPIRITUALIST, Vols. VI, VII (1875), and HUMAN NATURE, Vol. IX, p. 334.
Coates says, however, that Buguet was a worthless fellow. Certainly the position
of a man who can only prove that he is not a rogue by admitting that he made a
false confession out of fear is a weak one. The case for psychic photography
would be stronger without him. As to his confession, it was extracted from him
by a criminal action which the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Toulouse took
against the REVUE SPIRITE, when Leymarie, the editor, was tried and condemned.
Buguet was told that his one chance was to confess. Thus pressed, he did what so
many victims of the Inquisition had done before him, and made a forced
confession, which did not save him, however, from twelve months' imprisonment.