The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-07-12
THOUGHT VIBRATIONS
PUT ON NEGATIVES.
Wonderful Achievement of
a French Scientist in
Photography.
Images of the Mind Reproduced
on Sensitive Films by
DR.. Baraduc.
Successful Experiments at Paris
Which Confirm Those of DR.. Gates
at Washing ton, D. c.

Last weeks Eastern Sunday papers were
replete with lengthy descriptions and more
or less obscure illustrations concerning
the latest Partisan scientific discovery
the reproduction of thought waves or
vibrations on a sensitized plate in dark
room.
The New York Press goes to the length
of saying that the French scientist, Pro-
lessor H. Baraduc, has photographed a
soul as it emanated from the subjects left
hand, and, to make the matter still more
ridiculous, publishes dark plate indis-
crimInately disfgured with series of
Wavy gray lines.
In some of the more lucid and conserva-
tive descriptions of DR.. Baraduc's achieve
ments it appears that he has really an
nounced to the French Academy his abil-
ity to photograph thought emanations as
they project images in the astral light.
This is hardly the explanation that DIR.
Baraduc offers of his own discovery,
though it is difficult to say just what ex-
plantations he does offer or what claims he
actually makes, since the Eastern press
has gone into various kinds of rhapsodles
over the discovery and somewhat hidden
its real significance under mass OF sensa-
tionalism and froth.
1t appears, however, that DR.. Baraduc
has made an official report of his achieve
ments in a paper entitled ala Photogra-
phie de la Pensee'' (The Photography of
Though0, in which he declares his ability
to secure impressions of thought waves
and images on the sensitiZed Photographic
plate under proper conditions. His paper
gives the result of over 800 experiments.
He uses what he styles "magnetometre,p
which resembles nothing more closely
than a mariners compass, for which he
claims:
First-That when it is held near the left
hand, or for that matter near any portion of
the left side of the body, the magnetic needle
is repulsed distance of degrees.
Second-That when it is held near the right
side of the body or the right hand the needle
is attracted or drawn back through an arc Of
20 degrees.
Furthermore, when a sensitized photogra-
piers plate or film was held between the left
hand and the needle and afterward dipped II
developing bath it showed the appearance o1
plate perforated by full load of small bird
shot.
While no doubt of vast importan ce, per-
haps in the realm of thought and philos-
ophy more than practical science, DR..
Baraduc's experiments are not entirely
new to even western scierce, and are fore
Swallowed and thoroughly explained in
theory in many of the current Theosoph-
ical books.
To explain briefly, Theosophists know
and western scientists are grudgingly adj
mitting-that thought projects currents
and images into an all-peryading ether
that, though not personal, is yet of GER
tain density and can be seen by the
physical eye under certain conditions Of
light and physical development. There
are scores of old books and manuscripts
from India and Egypt still extant which
explain many of these subtler things in
nature, and the discovery of the Roentgen
ray and these experiments of DR.. Baraduc
but confirm the knowledge the ancients pos
sessed. DR.. Baraduc's experiments are also
conirmatory of those of Colonel de Roch as
OF EEcole Polytechnique in Paris. and o.
those of DR.. Elmer Gates at Washington,
D. c..
The New York Worlds assertion tha
1.-THE gist of these experiments is that vita
force, vitality, thought, or whatever you
may choose to call it, is phys ical force
not spiritual or metaphysical at all, " is OF
course ridiculous, and could only be made
by one lacking the knowledge that there
are things, forces, planes or vibrations in
the universe which are neither physical
nor spiritual. Whatever thought itself
may or may not be, it is quite safe to ven-
ture the assertion that DR.. Baraduc has
not and no scientist ever will succeed in
photographing it. What has been accom-
piished is, as stated, merely the photo
graphing of the vibrations and images
that are constantly being created by the
power of thought. ]. II. G.