SPIRIT_EXTRAS_ON_PHOTOGRAPHS

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In the twentieth century one of the most talked about British Spirit Photographers, was William Hope from Crewe, Cheshire, U.K., from the Crewe Circle, who found out that he was mediumistic and took his findings to the public. William used a plate camera of the time to take photographs of strangers. When the plates where developed, many times there would appear extras, which appeared to be the relatives and friends of the sitters.

Over time, William developed his link with the Spirit World by sitting in meditation, his mediumistic development started to grow as did his fame, which spread far and wide. The next thing he found was the fanatical Christians and skeptics started on him, accusing him of fraud. To counter this he took measures to silence them, but it never did any good as they had their usual blinkers on.

Whenever he could when doing the photographic sittings, he always made sure he had another person with him, a person he did not know.

The person who was having their photograph taken in what could only be called a seance like setting room, would be asked to bring their own photographic plates for his camera, which had to be factory sealed, signed or marked for the person to recognize as their own and unopened.

The guests and sitters would be asked to look over the equipment very carefully, the make up of this simple equipment was not very complicated, and the plates were fairly big in comparison to today's photographic equipment and film, so it was almost impossible to hide anything, the people there would not take long to examine it to their satisfaction but could take as long as they wished.

The sitters, and many times investigators [he had many of these trying to find a reason for the extras appearing on the new plates] when opening the factory sealed plates were asked to sign or initial their virgin plates, so they could recognize their own plates when the sittings were over.

William then asked them to personally place their own plates into the camera, and when finished, to take the plate out of the camera and take it into the darkroom [which was lit with red light, so everyone could see in there]. William and his sitters all stayed in the darkroom together so that it could be seen that NO fraud was taking place in the form of switching plates or adding anything into the developing process. He did everything possible to show he was not a person duping the public.

William Hopes Mediumship was such, he brought through on their personal photographic plates some animals who were the sitters pets, but most were of Spirit people extras, and over the years that ran into many hundreds of Spirit extras on the plates brought to him by strangers. The people who had their photographs taken by William Hope over time acknowledged that most of the extras on the plates were dead relatives and friends of themselves, the sitters, who were in the Spirit World. Those not recognized at the time, were later verified by living relatives and friends of the sitters.

Sometimes on the virgin photographic plates people brought with them, there appeared images of people who were still on the earth plane, but were not present at the time of the photographic session in the room, this is where the notion of thought-ography comes into play. On saying that it has been put forward as the over riding factor for some people, is that the images are caused by a sitter thinking of the person who appeared on the photographic plate whether alive or dead. In my opinion that does not take into consideration the FACT that images appeared of people the sitter was not thinking of at the time of the sitting. That being the case it must be that the people who appear on the virgin plate as an image must have some input to the process whether they are alive or across the veil remembering that thought is a living energy that can be proved, as shown in my book Meditation Oneness.

In one strange incident a lady Lillian Bailey went to see William Hope and sat for him. She received an image on her own photographic plate of what she at the time thought was a stranger, Lillian was wanting a photographic image of her mother in the Spirit World. It subsequently turned out to be a World War One soldier, William Hedley Wotton, who was Lillian's Spirit Guide. The image on the plate even shown with a darkened area, damage over his temple the bullet had done when it had hit him and killed him. Over the years she got confirmation off different Mediums that this was her Spirit Guide. Lillian went on to become a very well known and respected Medium.

Harry Price was sent to investigate Hope and all that was happening at the time BUT what should be taken into consideration is the fact that Harry Price was accused of helping Hope as he was a conjurer. It was said he had swapped the plates and not William Hope. At the time of the alleged fraud Price did not say anything until after he had gone home with the so called evidence, is it not possible that Harry Price had substituted the plates for his own. All the Spiritualist Newspapers of the time who had investigated William Hope before, found not a shred of evidence of any fraud, accused Harry Price of switching Hope's plates to discredit him and promote his books. Below is the photograph of Harry Price with the Spirit Extra that was the cause of the controversy.

William Hope was publicly praised for his mediumistic work by very prominent figures in the community of the time who attended sittings with Hope; people the likes of Arthur Conan Doyle, and Sir William Crookes who made sure of the conditions and thoroughly examined all the equipment before sitting and to make doubly sure they even had William Hope stand aside while they developed their own photographic plates, never allowing Hope to handle the plates at any stage.

The next photographic plate is another one of William Hope's photographs. It shows three men and the extra is a lady who was unknown, the man in the middle being a young looking Maurice Barbanell who was a founder of the Psychic News and Two Worlds Magazine, both of which are still being published today.

Over a period from the American Civil War and for about 60 years after, the work of the Mediumistic or Psychic Photographer seems to have been carried on then after the Second World War it slowly fell out of fashion. The methods used were many, some Mediums did it by just sitting there or standing behind the camera, and others who went into a trance like state. It is said some Mediums used pure will power, what ever method was used, it certainly helped a lot of sad people mourning and missing their loved ones across the veil.

I think the reason for its decline after the war was, people were now wanting an immediacy and they were starting to live at a fast pace of life always wanting their results quickly without the need for sitting to gain the link with the Spirit World.

There is a real need for the budding Mediumistic Photographer to understand that it is the combined effect of the energy of the communicating Spirit, the Medium, and the sitters/sitter who are/is trying to have an image placed beside them on the photographic medium, be it a Polaroid film, ordinary film an old fashioned plate, or on a digital camera. The most important thing is the link with the Spirit World see How to Link with Angels. in Meditation Oneness.

Some of the Mediums using this method of proving life continued found it helped to place the camera lens against their forehead and then click the exposure button. One such person was Ted Serios from the USA who also used what he called a gismo [a small black card tube] placed on the front of the forehead and the other end over the camera lens which pointing into the tube and was around the lens pointing at the forehead. he said he got better results this way but many times it took him up to six hours at a time. perhaps it took this long because he insisted that alcohol was supplied to him while performing his demonstrations which were not very reliable in their production of extras on the Polaroid film.

William Mumler the Spirit Photographer was a man who came up against a lot of problems that were produced by the religious and skeptical people of the time. Then and now in this day and age, these nasty type of people always seem to have the biggest and loudest voices, always acting as bullies.

Above is a developed photographic plate taken by Mumler of Mrs Mary Todd Lincoln months after her husband was assassination on the April 15, 1865, [when he was alive President Abraham Lincoln is one on the right ]. Mary allowed some of her friends who were Spiritualists to visit her in the White House, where some seances took place, as well as clairvoyant readings by several of the Spiritualist. They attempted to console the grieving widow. Many times to avoid publicity Mary went to outside seances under assumed names. Being mediumistic herself she liked to test the Mediums' skills. Once, on a trip to Boston, she attended a seance using the name Mrs. Tundall to avoid recognition, on this occasion as it was widely publicized, at the time she must have been noticed.

Abraham her husband appeared before her during one of the many seances, records show no mention of the Medium who sat for the First Lady at that seance. This photograph gave Mary great comfort that Abraham was still with her and could be shown to be so.

During the bereavement period, Mrs Lincoln visited William Mumler's studio. Mumler with his help of Spirit produced the photograph above of Mary with Abraham with his hands on her shoulders.

1868 Mumler photo. Mrs Conant of Banner of Light [a Spiritualist newspaper of the time] with the Spirit extra her Brother Charles H Crowell.

When William Mumler was a accused of fraud, a hoax photograph was paid for by P. T. Barnum [in the picture] the showman and committed Christian, it was produced by his hired professional photographer, Abraham Bogardus. Barnum paid for the best legal minds available as he had the money to do so and made sure he was there at the trail of William Mumler and produced himself, the photographer and the photograph, to bring him popularity and publicity, using it all to the best of his ability at the trail of William Mumler April 1869 to discredit him, Barnum NEVER attended any sittings at which Mumler produced his Spirit extras on the photographic plates. [William Mumler was not a wealthy man by any means, he was doomed from the start].

In 1891 Alfred Russell Wallace, the co-developer of the theory of evolution, threw his hat into the ring by declaring that Spirit Photography should be studied more closely and done so scientifically, as he had been studying it over a number of years, and had come to the conclusion that not all his finding could be put down as hoaxes. Just because some were, did not mean that they all were and his findings could not be dismissed.

Despite of his open comments the Spiritualist community kept their Spirit Photography away from the public gaze for many years. But during that time different photographs of some note crept out into the public arena, some of them could not be explained away even by the skeptics.