Harry Houdini vs the Spirit Photographers and the Ghosts That Weren’t

Houdini with the spirits of President and Mrs. Harding. From “The Case For and Against Psychical Belief.”

Harry Houdini spent many years exposing fraudulent mediums that capitalized on Spiritualism and people’s willingness to believe that the dead could talk.

Among the many frauds Houdini battled were spirit photographers. This new branch of Spiritualism began with William Mumler in 1862 and spread to other opportunistic and creative photographers.

One example was Alexander Martin of Denver, Colorado. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle told Houdini that he was “a very wonderful man in his particular line.” So the magician paid him a visit, and once inside the studio he attempted to explore the dark room.

“Now don’t you go in there, just wait a minute,” Martin said.

The photographer proved to be quite particular. Houdini had to stand where Martin wanted him. “This led me to think he was keeping that side of the plate clean for something to appear,” he wrote in A Magician Among the Spirits.

After a few more secretive photographic shenanigans, Martin finally shared some ghosts. Houdini’s conclusion:

I have not the slightest doubt that Mr. Martin’s Spirit photographs were simply double exposures. I think his method was to cut out various pictures, place them on a background and make an exposure. His plates were then ready for his next sitter, which in the above instance was myself. Being an expert photographer he might have used the original wet plate

Houdini and Alexander Martin, from A Magician Among the Spirits.

method of making an exposure, developing it, washing the emulsion off the plate and refinishing it with a new emulsion but I am convinced that the two Spirit photos which he made of me were simply double exposures.

The technique of photography does not trouble the psychic operator. He has no regard for the laws of light or chemistry. The fact that in all of his pictures the Spirits appear to be perfectly conscious of posing does not disconcert him, nor is he disturbed because they always appear as they were in life. How much more interesting it would be and how much more such photographs would add to our knowledge and aid the advancement of science if once in a while the Spirits would permit themselves to be snapped while engaged in some Spiritual occupation.

From a logical, rational point of view, Spirit photography is a most barefaced imposition and stands as evidence of the credulity of those who are in sympathy with the superstitions of occultism. It is also evidence of how unscrupulous mediums become and how calloused their consciences.