The publicity given to the recent attacks on Psychic Photography has been out of all proportion to their scientific value as evidence. When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle returned to Great Britain, after his successful tour in America, the controversy was in full swing. With characteristic promptitude he immediately decided to meet these negative attacks by a positive counter-attack, and this volume is the outcome of that decision. We have used the term Spirit Photography on the title-page as being the popular name by which these phenomena are known. This does not imply that either Sir Arthur or I imagine that everything supernormal must be of spirit origin. There is, undoubtedly, a broad borderland where these photographic effects may be produced from forces contained within ourselves. This merges into those higher phenomena of which many cases are here described. Those desiring fuller information on this subject are referred to Photo graphing the Invisible, by James Coates.

"The Case Against Spirit Photographs" by Vincent Patrick and Walter Whately Smith tapped into the fascination of spirits and ghosts that permeated society during the 20th century. Since this eagerness to believe in ghosts still exists over a century later, reading early texts debunking their existence is an insightful and entertaining experience that modern readers will love.

In the 1860s, William Mumler photographed ghostsa or so he claimed. Faint images of the dearly departed lurked in the background with the living, like his well-known photo of the recently assassinated Abraham Lincoln comforting Mary Todd. The practice came to be known as spirit photography, and some believed Mumler was channeling the dead. Skeptics, however, called it a fraudulent trick on the gullible, taking advantage of the grieving at a time of suffering and loss. Mumlera s insistence that his work brought back the dead led to a sensational trial in 1869 that was the talk of the nation.

A story of faith and fraud in post-Civil War America told through the lens of a photographer who claimed he could capture images of the dead

”Doyle’s modesty of language conceals a profound tolerance of the human complexity”-John Le Carré “Every Writer owes something to Holmes.” -T.S. Eliot While the controversy of Psychic Photography was gripping the early 20th Century United Kingdom, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle set out to investigate the most notable cases. In The Case for Spirit Photography, he aimed to defend the validity of capturing images of spirits with a camera. The spectacle of spirit photography had become popular in the late 19th Century, but by the 1920’s The Crewe Circle, an infamous English spiritualist group had become the center of a national controversy attacking spirit photography as a hoax. Doyle, a leader of the Spiritualist movement, wrote this investigation in defense of the group, and conjointly looks at other cases of supernatural incidences. As we face current public figures dismissive of empirical scientific evidence, this is a fascinating look at the intrigue of conviction. As the writer of one of fictions most colorful and abiding detectives, Doyle’s deductions in The Case for Spirit Photography are enthralling. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of The Case is both modern and readable.

'The Case for Spirit Photography' is a book that argues in favor of spirit photography, proposing that the phenomena is indeed a marriage between the scientific and the spiritual world. It is a type of photography whose primary goal is to capture images of ghosts and other spiritual entities, especially in ghost hunting. Perhaps, notably, the author of this book is not known for his trust in such superstitions, for this individual is none other than the author of the Sherlock Holmes series, Arthur Conan Doyle.

A charlatan is haunted by sinister secrets and spirits from his past in this Gothic novel of the Reconstruction Era. Boston, 1870. Photographer Edward Moody has gained fame and fortune capturing the images of spirits in his photo portraits. He lures grieving widows and mourning mothers into his studio with promises of catching the ghosts of their deceased loved ones with his camera. But his elaborate hoax is about to yield shocking results . . . While attempting to capture the spirit of an abolitionist senator’s young son, a different spectral figure develops before Moody’s eyes. The camera has seemingly captured the spirit of a beautiful young woman from Moody’s past—the daughter of an escaped slave he knew long ago. He immediately sets out for the Louisiana bayou to resolve their unfinished business?and perhaps save his soul . . .

Photography and spirit examines images of phantoms, psychical emanations, and religious apparitions.

Edmund Teske (1911-1996) was one of the alchemists of twentieth-century American photography. Over a sixty-year period, he created a diverse body of work that explored the expressive and emotional potentials of the medium. His drive to experiment with sophisticated techniques, such as solarization and composite printing, liberated a younger generation of American photographers; at the same time, his subject matter-sometimes abstract, often homoerotic, and always lyrical and poetic-opened up new areas for photographers to explore. Spirit into Matter is published to coincide with the first major retrospective of Teske's work, to be held at the Getty Museum from June 15 to September 19, 2004. Julian Cox provides an introduction and extensive biocritical essay on Teske that traces his long and varied career, from Chicago in the 1930s to Los Angeles, where the photographer took up residence in 1943. Cox investigates Teske's early associations with such influential figures as Frank Lloyd Wright and Paul Strand and his later associations with iconic figures including filmmaker Kenneth Anger and musicians Ramblin' Jack Elliott and the Doors. The first major study of this fascinating and influential artist, Spirit into Matter will be a dynamic source of information for students of photography, collectors, and all those with an interest in the life and culture of Southern California, where Teske worked for more than fifty years.

From the mediums of Spiritualism's golden age to the ghost hunters of the modern era, Taylor shines a light on the phantasms and frauds of the past, the first researchers who dared to investigate the unknown, and the stories and events that galvanized the pubic and created the paranormal field that we know today.