Evening star., 1922-10-18

!" Immediately after my re-
ligious one. and 1t set the abb
sollte seal OF success upon my
enterprise. for it created such surprise
and interest that / had to repeat 1t
three moro times in New York before !
left. Thus. II l include the Brooklyn
lecture. l filed great halls on seven
occasions In the one city, which is an
absolute record. The record was held
before by Sir Oliver Lodge with six lee
lures. 80 1t is clear that psychic sub
3ects present strong appeal to the
public and that there is a vehement de-
sire for information.
The American public had never taken
psychic photography seriously, having
been ''doped." as they would them
selves express it. by all the ridicule and
slander which have been spent upon
the subject. When put face to face
with them their native common sense
at once asserted itself. and both press
men and public understood that the
wholesale charge Of fraud was quite
untenable and unreasonable
The course of the contention has been
this: Says the spiritualist. 1--WE can in
the presence Of certain people get i'm
pressions of the features OF the dead"
Says the skeptic, Where are they?"
Here by the hundred" says the spirit
ualist. and produces them. but those
are fakes" "How then are they pro-
duced?" "Oh, by substitution of plates,
superposition of negatives and SO on"
1--WE have guarded against all that"
You have not guarded well enough"
But the pictures represent the dead
beyond all question of doubt in some of
the cases, and they differ from any ex-
isting photographs"
Absolutely Final Proof.
In many cases the relatives agree
that they are more like than any taken
in life. What then? And there the
skeptic is silent, or talks falsely of
''blurs" and "blotches." We have then
received an absolutely final proof of
abnormal powers, and all talk of fakes
and frauds is forever beside the point.
Even If these mediums were to cheat in
other cases, still the existence of these
least occasional psychic powers which
nothing can alter.
The americans soon saw the force of
such an argument. They understood
that a hundred negative results cannot
explain away single positive one and
its implications. | showed them some
forty photographs and explained the
guarantees of truth in each case. 1
also explained 20 them all that had been
done about ectoplasm. and showed some
of the Crawford -Bisson-Notzing photo
graphs. 1t took me an hour and three
quarters, but l think l ended with the
mental acquiescence of all nv audi
ence.
They were especially impressed by
the case Of DIR. Cushman of WASH
ington, who was actually in the au-
dtence. He called upon Mrs. Deane at
the Psychic College in London with
out any appointment or introduction
and he got. beside his own face. that
of his daughter Agnes, who had died
a year or SO before. 1t was a living
likeness. better than and yet unlike
any taken in life. Surely any rea-
sonable man will agree that this
case. though only one of many, is in
itself absolutely conclusive and
proves for all time that Mrs. Deane
is true psychic photographer,
though why her atmosphere should
be more helpful than that of another
to get this result remains, of course,
a most obscure problem. There has
been succession of people, from
the days of Mumler in 1861 who have
claimed this power, and l do not my
self think that. with the possible ex-
ception Of Beignet the Frenchman
and Falls of Chicago. there is one of
them who was not a perfectly gem
uine medium, though 1 know that
there Is many pitfall there for the
researcher.
AS usual, the press notices were
most full and sympathetic. The New
York Times said: ITO an audience
which filled every seat in Carnegie
Hall, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle showed
spirit photographs of every kind
men, women and children. landscapes
and birds-taken with the greatest
precautions against fraud. Many of
the latter were strangely pathetic.
One ghost. plainly transparent, was
seated beside a printed page con-
tanning five verses of St. Marks
Gospel in Cingalese, language
unknown to the medium
Only Ignorant Doubters.
The New York World said: LAS on
former occasions. the immense audi