THE CASE FOR SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

[maxgal]

Released 6/25/19 by Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/59809

From the Preface by Fred Barlow:

"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 'Photographing the Invisible,' by James Coates.

"It was only when editing the matter for these pages that I fully realised what an overwhelming mass of reliable material we had to work upon. In restricting this book to the necessary limits it has only been possible to make use of a small portion of this evidence. Many more cases have been placed on record and may be published on some future occasion. Most of the[vi] letters accompanying these descriptions display a deep and genuine affection for the maligned mediums of the Crewe Circle. Our hearty thanks are due to all those friends who have so readily co-operated in this work and who are so willing to brave the discomforts of publicity for what they know to be the truth."

[Availle]

Goodness! Is that the one about the "fairy photos"? That's when the father of Sherlock Holmes made a complete fool out of himself.

(I have changed your link to the main page of this book so that people can choose their preferred format.)

[annise]

We have got Conan Doyle's book https://librivox.org/the-coming-of-the-fairies-by-arthur-conan-doyle/ But when the girls one of them explained they created al the photos. (I remembered the cover )

Anne

[maxgal]

Goodness! Is that the one about the "fairy photos"? That's when the father of Sherlock Holmes made a complete fool out of himself.

(I have changed your link to the main page of this book so that people can choose their preferred format.)

Not the same book.
Doyle's "spiritualist" interests were more far-reaching, for quite a long time before & after the fairy photo thing.
And in Doyle's "defense" (if any is needed), I will say that lots of people were involved in investigations of the 5 fairy photos; and surprisingly enough for us looking back, opinions were decidedly mixed, for ages.
...LJB

[annise]

In fairness to them all, photography was very new and there still is a certain amount of belief in the theory that if it's in a photo it must be true. Even now when the use of airbrushing and photoshopping is available to all

Anne