13.S 



DISC.OVI'.HV 



notes predicting the event to a disinterested jserson on 

 the day before The Times, which confirmed the event, 

 came out, so that one obvious explanation of the 

 matter is exchided. 



Here is, from his notes, one message received from the 

 medium : 



" In column one and about a quarter down is your 

 father's name given in connection with a place he knew 

 very well about twenty years ago " ; and here is Mr. 

 Thomas's comment upon it : 



" Between a quarter and a half-way down is the 

 name ' John ' and one inch above it is ' Birkdale.' 

 My father's name was John, and ' Birkdale ' is the name 

 of the house he bought when retiring from active work 

 anil where he resided until his death." 



This is a typical example from Mr. Thomas's article. 

 At first it struck me as so ingenuous that I suspected 

 the author of pulling my leg. But no. He is serious. 

 Come, now, is there anything wonderful about the name 

 John (not Hieronimus or Jared or Septimus Eric, but 

 John) appearing in any column of The Times ? It would 

 be more wonderful, surely, if it failed to appear less than 

 ten times. Again, there is nothing wonderful in the 

 apparent fulfilment of the prophecy concerning Birk- 

 dale. Notice, Birkdale is not mentioned specifically 

 by the medium. It is merely a particular example of 

 a general category, places which a man knew twenty 

 years ago. Now, in igoi I was only a small boy, but 

 the number of places I knew " very well " then was 

 anything from a hundred to a thousand, depending 

 upon what is meant by a place. The probability that the 

 name of one of these should appear in a column of The 

 Times is a very great one. These book-tests, indeed, 

 are rubbish. There is absolutely " nothing in them." 

 Mr. Drayton Thomas does not appear to understand 

 coincidence and correlation. 



In the same magazine is an interesting and informed 

 article by two authors on Spirit-photographs which 

 deserves to be read widely. The conclusion of the 

 authors is that most spirit-photographs appear to be 

 fakes ; but the most interesting part of the article lies 

 in the description of the numerous methods by which a 

 photographer who wants to deceive may do so. Many 

 of these depend upon co-operation between the photo- 

 grapher and an accomplice, some merely on sleight-of- 

 hand, some simply on knowing your audience, and some 

 on certain scientific facts known to the deceiver but 

 unsuspected by his clients. 



Who would imagine that it is possible for a photo- 

 ■graph of a suitable object to be taken in a perfectly 



dark room by a plate that has been carefully wrapped 

 up and sealed and never previously exposed ? Yet 

 anyone who has persevered in the science of physics as 

 far as the standard required for London Intermediate 

 knows there arc rays invisible to the eye which can 

 penetrate with ease several layers of pajjer and affect 

 the plate (or film) photographically. In such a case 

 wrapping up the plates and sealing them, as spirit- 

 photographers love to do, is analogous in simplicity to 

 shutting and sealing up the gate of a field on a windy 

 day to keep out the draught ! 



A camera may record a good deal more than meets 

 the eye. In\'isible stars, for example, may be detected 

 by the photographic plate. A can of hot water may 

 be photographed, by a long exposure, in a perfectly 

 dark room. A well-known instance of a similar phe- 

 nomenon is Sir Robert Ball's story of the writing on the 

 side of the " Great Eastern " which was successfully 

 photographed a great many years after it had been 

 painted out and rendered invisible. The reader may 

 also be referred to the article on radiography in the 

 present number. The man who wants to believe in 

 spirit-photographs is inclined to believe, or is led to 

 believe, that anything he cannot explain must be due 

 in some way to " spirits." Naturally he cannot be 

 expected to be a walking encyclopedia of the sciences, 

 and so he falls an easy victim to deception. 



No amount of argument along these lines avails 

 with some people. Many people are happier in being 

 cranks than in looking facts in the face. Others feel 

 that the denial of " spiritualistic " manifestations is to 

 abandon everything, and to leave only a purely material- 

 istic and sordid world of muscle and sex, of muck and 

 misery. But the higher things in life — religion, idealism, 

 the belief in a spiritual order of things — have absolutely 

 nothing to do with table-rapping, spirit-photography, 

 and so forth. These manifestations can be explained 

 by natural causes, known or unknown, and by the 

 " human toucli " (which in many cases is imposture). 



The views of Mr. Vincent Patrick (one of the joint- 

 authors of the article referred to) on the so-called " Fairy 

 Photographs " recently published by Sir Arthur Conan 

 Doyle'and Mr. E. L. Gardner are verj' interesting. He 

 considers all this talk about the physical existence of 

 fairies to be bunkum, and the photographs to be fakes. 

 It will be remembered that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 

 said of the latter that such " rare results must be ob- 

 tained when and how they can." A cynic might well 

 remark of this that its speaker is not merely looking for 



