[Excerpt from "Ectoplasmic Phenomena in Contemporary Mediumship: An Analysis of a Photographic Record," by Prof. Martin J. Ingersoll, Hume Polytechnic Institute; published in Popular Science Monthly vol. 84, no. 5 (April 1914), pp. 412-421.]
III. The Photograph in Question.
The photograph which is the subject of the present analysis (Plate I, opposite p. 414) was made at a séance held in the parlor of a private residence in a city of the Great Lakes region on the evening of the 17th of November, 1913. The medium is not named in the present paper; she is a recent arrival in the city, of Southern origin, whose practice has gathered to itself a circle of devoted patronesses drawn from the most respectable strata of the city's society. The sitters at the séance here photographed numbered seven, including the medium, the hostess (a widow of some wealth), and five others; the photographer was an amateur sympathizer of the medium's who has, at the author's request, consented to the examination of his negative and has permitted the present reproduction.
The phenomenon photographed is that which the spiritualist literature terms ectoplasmic emanation — a luminous, apparently substantial effluent said to proceed from the medium's person during her trance state. In the photograph the effluent is visible as a rope-like projection extending from the medium's mouth downward and to her left, terminating in what appears to the naive eye as a vaguely humanoid formation at approximately hip height.
IV. Analysis.
My examination of the negative, made with a loupe at 10x magnification, discloses four features that tell against the authenticity of the phenomenon:
(a) The apparent effluent is, upon close inspection, of discrete texture — that is, it reveals a woven pattern consistent with a fine cheesecloth of the kind sold for $0.15 per yard at any grocer's. The pattern is particularly visible in the terminal "humanoid" formation, where the material has been twisted to create the suggestion of a face.
(b) At the upper terminus, where the effluent joins the medium's mouth, a faint highlight runs diagonally upward and to the left, terminating above her hairline. My examination of the reverse of the plate confirms that this highlight corresponds to a slender thread — in my judgment a gut of fine diameter, such as is used in the dressing of surgical sutures — drawn from the medium's hair to a pulley concealed, I believe, in the frame of the parlor chandelier. The thread is supporting the "ectoplasm" from above.
(c) The medium's posture in the photograph is not consistent with a trance state. Her left hand, visible at the edge of the table, is tightly clenched, with the tendons of the wrist prominent. A woman genuinely in trance relaxes the extremities. A woman manipulating an effluent by a hidden cord tenses her hand at the moment of effort. The photograph was exposed precisely at a moment of such tension.
(d) The exposure was made by magnesium flash, the burst of which is recorded by the film at the instant of ignition. The "ectoplasm" shows no motion-blur at the instant of exposure, despite the medium's known habit — recorded by several sitters in their published accounts — of producing her ectoplasm in visible motion. A genuinely moving object, at the shutter speed of the photographer's camera, would register some blur. The absence of blur indicates that the effluent was not, at the instant of exposure, in motion; which in turn suggests that it was not being produced by the medium's respiratory apparatus (which would produce motion even in quiescence), but was hanging from the aforementioned thread at a static position.
The author will not undertake, in the present paper, any judgment upon the medium's sincerity or upon the wider philosophical question of the existence or non-existence of the phenomena commonly attributed to mediumship. The author will observe only that this particular photograph, offered by the medium and her patronesses as conclusive evidence of the phenomenon, does not in the author's opinion sustain that offer. It is, in the author's opinion, a photograph of a cheesecloth on a gut thread, skillfully arranged.
The author expresses his thanks to the photographer (who wishes to remain anonymous pending further consideration of the implications) and to the hostess of the séance (whose courtesy in permitting the examination the author acknowledges with respect). The author does not thank the medium, whom he has not been able to interview on this matter, and whose representatives have declined his requests for comment.
V. Conclusion.
A public which proposes to accept as evidence of the survival of the dead a rope of woven linen hanging by a surgical thread from a parlor chandelier is, in the author's view, a public that may be persuaded to accept a great many things on a great many evenings. The author commends to such a public the further reading of any work of plain natural philosophy, selected at random from the shelves of a library.
[Offprint ends. The photograph plate, referenced but not reproduced here, is held as HUPL-1914-INGERSOLL-PLATE-I at the Hume Polytechnic library, catalogued 1915 by E. Cargill, access unrestricted.]