Belief in fairies, ghosts and other supernatural phenomena may seem to have little to do with science and its technologies. But such beliefs—often called ‘occult’—have a long shared history with science.
This story looks at the role played by imaging technologies, such as photography and X-rays, in the history of the supernatural, and how photographers and scientists like William Hope and William Crookes tried to use images to reveal a hidden world.
SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY AND WILLIAM HOPE
Can cameras capture ‘spirits’ invisible to the naked eye? From the mid-19th century onwards, many have believed so. The photographs below were taken by the British medium and photographer William Hope around 1920. After his photographic plates were developed, ghostly faces which had not been visible in the room itself mysteriously appeared. Hope and others claimed that they belonged to spirits of the dead.
The earliest known spirit photographs were taken in America in 1861, some years after the spiritualist craze began sweeping the world. Spiritualists believe that the spirit continues to exist and act in the world after death, including interacting with the living. Spectacular displays of ‘spirit’ phenomena during séances were central to spiritualist belief, from mysterious rappings to full-on spirit materialisations. Spirit photography seemed to empirically capture these often elusive phenomena, serving to confirm spiritualist understandings of reality.
Hellbound and Down 