New Britain herald., 1923-04-11
DUBS Spirit
PICTURES AS fraud.
He Demonstrates How Easily
Ghosts" Can Be Reproduced

new YORK, April ll.--Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle's spirit pictures" show
Ing throngs OF shadowy figures gath
erinR about the tomb Of the British
Unknown Soldier In London ON armi-
stice day, we're derided here by Rev.
G. NJ. de Heredia. g. j., who demon
strated In the Photographic depart
ment of The Evening World that he
could cause similar phenomena to APP
pear on Photographic plates without
touching them and without any aid
from the other world.
Is Catholic Priest
Father de Heredia, Catholic priest
In Mexico City. has made a long study
of spiritnalism as we'll as the tricks
employed by stage magicians and
sleight-of- hand performers.
He described his method of produce
Ing weird photographs as 'trickery
and device, and spiritism not at ALL
because as between living persons
here on earth and the spirits that
have passed from the body there is
not and cannot be control from the
living world"
The Evening World published two
of Father Heredia's pictures, one a
of William H. Anderson,
state superintendent of the Anti
saloon league, upon which had been
the shadowy figure of
tipsy vagabond and bust of Sir Ar
MUIR and the other photograph OF
upon which he placed the
form of a tin-hatted doughboy with
his rifle at present arms"
Whispers Secret To staff Man
Three members of the newspapers
staff who were present at the demon
stration testified Father Heredia did
not touch the plates and did not ap-
proach closer to them at any time
than three feet.
When he had finished his demon-
,tration he proved how simple 1t all |
was by whispering the secret to a |
'taK photographer in the group, who
hereupon made some spirit pic |
ures unaided
On his way out, Father Heredia is
sued challenge to spiritualistic ex-
,onents to produce any phenomenon
hat he could not duplicate, provided
,e was given ''as much time to pre-
pare as they have presumably allowed
themselves
Sir A. Conan Doyle in statement
made after he had seen the newspa-
Ter reproductions of Father Heredia's
experiment. at ghost photography, said
hat great ignorance of the subject
lad been shown.
"Has No Appreciation of Facts"
arho toin Of
my other conjuror." he said, that he
an make counterfeit ghosts is quite
outside the question and shows that
le has no appreciation of facts that
have put before the public.
"The point which he ignores is that
n whole series of these cases, which
can show, the faces Of the dead have
ppeared in clearly recognizable
orm when the photographer had no
ossible knowledge of the identity of
he visitor and could, therefore, have
lade no preparation.
"Such childish argument that we
ould all fake a Photographic plate or
uild UP bogus spirit disregards the
tai point at issue and is unworthy
t a serious discussion.
There is in England society
allied the Society for the Study of
upernormal Photography. We are
bout 100 strong and we contain
men, photographers, sci
ntists and people OF all sorts. We
ave for some years studied this
lestion closely and many hundreds
psychic photographs have been
lost carefully analysed. We have
ur own paper which we circulate
mong our members. II
"Greatest Expert Authority II
I'VE are the greatest expert author II
les on this subject in the world and III
do not think that among all our
embers there Is one who would now,
ter his experience, sustain the idea
fraud.
I'VE are all agreed, however, that
e matter is exceedingly complex and
at the process by which the image
mes upon the plate is often very
fferent from that Of ordinary pho
graphy and is in many cases the
of an impression upon
e plate which is brought about
lite independently of light"
Sir Arthur exhibited several of the
cietys spirit photographs which
I've been accepted as authentic and
United out that the spirit faces in
EN- were clearcut and easily dis
lguished' likenesses on comparison
It'll photographs of the subjects when
I've. The ghost photographs of FIR.
eredia he asserted. were meaning
IS blurs, even allowing for the diff
ulty of reproducing them clearly in
newspaper cut