That is just what they do and resulting photographs cause a sensation. Peter O'Toole plays Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the hard-nosed skeptic Sherlock Holmes, who nevertheless is ready to accept the photographs as real. If one looks for it there is some material that is worth considering in the film. The story offers us a variety of people in varying degrees of belief or skepticism and we can see their motivations for their degree of belief. Generally it is the people who have been most injured by reality who are willing to turn from that reality and embrace the fanciful.
Faith also works better on children than adults in the film.
And the film seems very accepting of skepticism. The most sympathetic adult character is Keitel's Harry Houdini. O'Toole, on the other hand, is not well- cast as Doyle. Physically he is wrong to play the short and plumpish writer. His character seems too anxious to convince others to believe in the supernatural, at one point even saying to be skeptical is to show disrespect to him.